BY WALTER LIPPMANN 

THE POEMS OF PAUL MARIETT 

Edited with an Introduction 

A PREFACE TO POLITICS 

DRIFT AND MASTERY 

THE STAKES OF DIPLOMACY 



THE POLITICAL SCENE 



An Essay on the Victory of 1918 



BY 



WALTER LIPPMANN 




NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
1919 



A 



^f* 



Copyright, 1919 

BY 

THE REPUBLIC PUBLISHING COMPANY. Inc. 



Copyright, 1919 

BY 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 



apr ; 



©CU515296 



DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF 
WILLARD DICKERMAN STRAIGHT 



f 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction .; ix 

CHAPTER 

I. The Task at Paris .... 3 

II. Peace as of January, 1918 . . n 

III. Absolute Victory .... 19 

IV. " The Natural Master of the 

House" 29 

V. The Covenant 35 

VI. A World Pool 40 

VII. Alternatives 46 

TIL Amendments 54 

IX. Bolshevism 66 

X. The Test 80 

Appendix I : The World Conflict in its Rela- 
tion to American Democracy . . 83 

Appendix II: Text of the Proposed Consti- 
tution of the League of Nations . 104 



INTRODUCTION 

ONE evening last December I was talking 
with an Italian scholar who had come 
to Paris for his government. The news that 
day was bad: outbreaks on the Dalmatian coast, 
quarrels between the Czechs and Poles, the 
British elections at the bottom of their deepest 
depression, and inspiration raging in the French 
press. He shook his head sympathetically : " This 
is our old Europe, and you Americans must not 
be surprised. We have had our American phase, 
but that is over now that the war is finished. 
We have been through a frightful illness, and 
thought we were going to die. Our minds 
turned in those days to higher things, and along 
came the Americans with a perfect bedside man- 
ner, entrancing self-confidence, the strength of 
youth, and a gospel of the simple life. We made 
good resolutions as sick poets do. We swore 
that if we got well this time, we would stay well. 
You know — no more city life, but the country, 
a cow, rise at dawn, to bed early, exercise, fear 

ix 



x Introduction 



God, and listen to Woodrow Wilson. It was 
sincere at the time. Then Europe recovered. It 
put off going to the country. It paid a visit to 
the old haunts, met the old cronies, and felt most 
awfully bored with the everlasting morality of 
the Fourteen Commandments. A little of that 
goes a long way." 

In the essay which follows I have tried to in- 
dicate some of the reasons why my friend was 
wrong, and why, if Europe is to reconstruct it- 
self in the face of the international revolution, 
the democracies of the West must devote them- 
selves unreservedly to the making of a coopera- 
tive peace. For a new Europe will emerge from 
this war. That much is certain, and the only 
question is whether it will be organized at Paris 
or disorganized from Moscow. 

Three great influences are at work in the 
world which may briefly be described as the Re- 
action, the Reconstruction, and the Revolution. 
From them the political scene is engendered. 
Behind the Reaction are those who believe that 
hostile rivalry and recurrent wars are permanent 
European institutions, and that the object of a 
treaty of peace is to secure as many advantages 



Introduction 



XI 



for yourself and your friends and put as many 
handicaps on your enemies and rivals as the 
traffic will bear. Thus you prepare yourself for 
the competitions and the wars which are certain 
to ensue. Anything else is what a French 
royalist paper has called "vertiginous ideal- 
ism," or what an insubordinate American 
military politician has described as " verbal 
massage." 

The Revolution is equally convinced that any- 
thing else is highfalutin nonsense. Lenin and 
his followers in all countries say quite frankly 
that liberalism is dying and should be extermi- 
nated, that the " idealogy " of the Wilsons merely 
confuses and blurs the issue which is about to be 
fought out between the old order resting on vio- 
lence and the new order created by violence. 
Lenin has no doubts that if ever the choice is 
narrowed so that the masses must choose be- 
tween him and the reaction, his own victory is 
assured. He is quite right. Men will prefer a 
violent hope to a terrible despair. 

The old order which so many of the states- 
men at Paris are trying so earnestly to maintain 
is utterly incapable of creating the security, the 



xii Introduction 



well-being and that temper of reconciliation 
which alone can avert a universal revolution. 
There is one chance, and a somewhat slim one, 
that the purposes which Wilson has voiced can, 
if honestly applied, open an orderly road to re- 
vival and freedom. I call it a slim chance, be- 
cause moral fervor can easily lose itself in a 
world where needs are stark and scruples few. 
Many who have supported Mr. Wilson and still 
support him in all loyalty, know that his ideas 
have never had the precision and downrightness 
which characterizes both the Reaction and the 
Revolution. Those who have said " We demand 
this territory " have known just exactly what 
they wanted, as have those who say " We de- 
mand the complete overthrow of existing gov- 
ernments." But the Wilson movement is an ef- 
fort to temper the policies of existing govern- 
ments in order to justify their existence. That 
is an immensely difficult thing to do, requiring 
the most persistent education, and the shrewdest 
use of opportunities. One thinks then of the 
Committee on Public Information and the Am- 
erican diplomatic service abroad, and of the in- 
numerable occasions when responsible American 



Introduction xii 



officials in Europe derived their notions of Am- 
erican official policy by reading the morning 
newspapers. I think especially of the discom- 
forting remark made to me by the diplomatic 
agent of one of the smaller nations shortly be- 
fore the President arrived in Paris: "If he 
knows exactly what he wants, he can get it. 
Does he know? He has an ideal; but has he a 
program ? " 

This much is certain. From the day of Am- 
erica's entrance into the war to the day of the 
armistice, the chance to lead Europe to a liberal 
reconstruction was completely in the hands of 
the President. With the end of the war, as my 
Italian friend remarked, this chance diminished, 
and the winter in Paris has been spent wran- 
gling over points that could have been settled 
with marvelous ease at any time during the 
course of the war. But only those who feed on 
prejudice, and those who wish to see failure at 
Paris, can do anything now but pray anxiously 
that they will still be settled, and that the peace 
which emerges from the secrecy of Paris will 
represent the faith that has been proclaimed to 
all the world. 



xiv Introduction 



For permission to reprint the text which fol- 
lows I am indebted to the New Republic, where 
it first appeared. An address delivered before 
the American Academy of Political Science in 
April, 191 7, is included in the Appendix. 

W. L. 



New York City, 
March 23, 1919. 



THE POLITICAL SCENE 



THE TASK AT PARIS 

IT looks as if a large number of Americans 
were thoroughly frightened at what a world 
war can do to the world. Curiously enough 
this state of fear seems to exist among those who 
not only were heart and soul for the war them- 
selves, but were convinced that they were a little 
more heart and soul for it than anyone else. 
They expected better of this war, and they are 
really rather disappointed at the way things are 
working themselves out. They had anticipated, 
that once the Hun was licked, the world would 
automatically return, if not to righteousness, at 
least to something rather like what it enjoyed in 
the days when the Kaiser was still flattering mil- 
lionaires and professors. Instead they discover 
Mr. Wilson engaged in making a peace that to 
them passeth all understanding; instead of the 
comfort of having won and letting the other fel- 
low worry, it seems to be the victors who have to 

3 



The Political Scene 



perform the extremely complicated and unmis- 
takably dangerous task of setting the earth to 
rights. The old idea that to the victor belong 
the spoils, has turned into the victor's duty of 
listening to everybody's troubles. Not only 
that. His duties do not end with listening, but 
do actually involve a mass of responsibility for 
the future of which it is fair to say most Amer- 
icans had no notion when they entered the war. 
They did not suppose that so many things would 
be irrevocably changed. " War measures " — 
the vast interruptions necessary to the fight, they 
endured without murmuring, but now they 
would like to resume. 

It becomes clearer every day that the war 
was not an interruption which will end with the 
end of the war. For the plain fact is that in- 
ternational relations as they existed in 19 14 were 
almost completely determined by the military 
imperialisms of which Prussia was the chief. 
And until we master the fact that the empires 
of Hohenzollern, Hapsburg, Sultan and Czar 
were the foundations of law and order in Europe 
before 19 14, we shall not understand either the 
meaning of their destruction, or the conse- 



The Task at Paris 



quences of our own victories. They were the 
basis of " peace," such as it was, and of normal 
conditions, as men suffered them. Only Amer- 
ica seemed to lie outside the orbit of their in- 
fluence, and this proved in the end to be a de- 
lusion. The ambitions, intrigues, necessities, 
and tyrannies of those empires were the point of 
reference for all the world. They set the pace 
in armaments. Those towering systems of 
power necessitated the building of another sys- 
tem of power to balance them. The character of 
the competition they created in the backward por- 
tions of the globe stimulated an imitative com- 
petition. It did not matter who liked their game 
or hated it. They made the game, and reluc- 
tantly or otherwise the game was played. 

From Prussian Germany came the example of 
how to modernize and make a success of ideas at 
which this generation was inclined to jeer. She 
was not the first of the imperial depotisms, nor 
altogether unique either in manners or morals. 
Where her peculiar danger lay was that in all 
the others there had arisen controlling popular 
forces, or, as in Russia, the administration of 
tyranny was collapsing through sheer incompe- 



The Political Scene 



tence. But Prussia was competent, and because 
of that competence she threatened to erect a 
dazzling modern triumph out of ideas which 
lingered only fitfully in the dusty corners of stale 
chancelleries. She came uncomfortably close 
not only to making her will the law of three con- 
tinents, but to making her ideas the pattern of 
conventional human thought. She almost dem- 
onstrated how tyranny could be made success- 
ful and on a world-wide scale. 

Her downfall brought down with it the hopes 
of those feebler empires which existed as com- 
petitors or vassals or imitators, and made a 
mockery of those empires which existed in the 
dreams and propaganda of hopeful jingoes. 
" Europe," as it presented itself to the old-school 
diplomat, is gone. The continent is still there, 
most of the population is still there, to be sure, 
but Europe as a diplomatic system is hopelessly 
gone. Its organization tf rom the Rhine to the 
Pacific, from the North Sea to the Moslem world 
is broken, and all the subsidiary organizations 
which leaned upon it, and against it, are sus- 
pended on nothing. Only small groups of far- 
seeing men have comprehended even partially 



The Task at Paris 



that this is what the " victoire integrate " would 
mean; that victory would compel us to make a 
new framework for human society. It is no 
wonder, then, that many elder statesmen, edu- 
cated in that ruined order, should still act for the 
ideas which belonged to it, that Baron Sonnino 
should behave like a diplomat of the Triplice, or 
M. Pasic should be puzzled by the younger 
Serbs, that M. Pichon should have forgotten 
nothing but a little of what democratic France 
has professed. 

The meaning of complete victory was cer- 
tainly not known to those statesmen who wrote 
the secret treaties and memoranda which passed 
between the Allies in 1915 and 1916. To be 
sure, the execution of what they claimed would 
have required clear victory over the Central 
Powers. But although the victory was to be de- 
cisive, it was somehow to change nothing very 
radically. These documents belonged in spirit 
to a world in which Prussia was temporarily de- 
feated, but in which Prussianism survived as the 
pacemaker of Europe. Moreover, they presup- 
posed an easy victory — a victory which did not 
wrack every nation to its depths, and call forth 



8 The Political Scene 

the suppressed energies of revolution. They 
were written under the double illusion that the 
Europe of Sazanov, Sonnino, the Quai d'Orsay 
and the Morning Post was strong enough to de- 
feat the German Empire — and that having 
defeated her, Europe could carry on as before. 
Events proved that Prussia could not be re- 
placed by paler reflections of herself. For in de- 
stroying her, it was necessary to awaken dor- 
mant peoples and submerged classes and the 
western hemisphere. 

Why anyone should suppose that it was pos- 
sible to tear down the authority which ruled in 
central and eastern Europe without producing 
disorder, it is difficult to understand. We have 
torn down authority. We have willed to tear it 
down. It was a vile authority, but it was the 
existing authority in law and in fact. We sent 
two million men to France with orders to tear 
it down, to crush it beyond hope of resurrection. 
And when you tear down, you have torn down. 
We started to destroy a supremely evil thing 
and it is destroyed. The result of destroying it 
is destruction, and what is left are fragments, 
and possibilities, the stirrings of new life long 



The Task at Paris 



suppressed, old hopes released, old wrongs being 
avenged, and endless agitation. It is chaos by 
every standard of our thinking, wild and danger- 
ous, perhaps infectious, and thoroughly uncom- 
fortable. But we cannot, having deliberately 
torn a central part of the world order to pieces, 
leave the wreckage in a panic and whimper that 
it is dreadful. Nor can we cure it, or save our- 
selves, by calling everybody who examines it 
dispassionately some idiotic name like pro-Ger- 
man and Bolshevik. 

It calls for imagination to picture just what 
has happened to Europe and the world by the 
disappearance of its imperial organizations. We 
find ourselves in a world where four of the 
eight or nine centers of decisive authority have 
collapsed; where hundreds of millions of people 
have been wrenched from their ancient altars of 
obedience; where the necessities of bare exist- 
ence are scarce, and precariously obtained. These 
people have lost homes, children, fathers. They 
are full of rumor and fear, and subject to every 
gust of agitation. Their leaders are untried, 
their lands undefined, their class interests and 
property in a jumble, they cannot see ahead three 



IO The Political Scene 

weeks with assurance. It was inevitable that it 
should be so, once the decision was taken to 
destroy autocracy to its foundations. For Prus- 
sian Germany was the last strong source of 
authority in Eastern Europe, and the only bul- 
wark of absolutism to which the old order could 
turn for help. 



II 

PEACE AS OF JANUARY, 1918 

IN the winter of 1917-18 there were men in 
all countries who saw this, and urged a com- 
promise with the Prussian state. 

It is no secret now that a combination of 
conservatism and war-weariness nearly brought 
the conflict to an indecisive end some time be- 
tween June, 19 1 7, and March, 19 18. The sum- 
mer months had been a time of deep depression 
in France after the military failure of the spring. 
In July the German Reichstag passed its famous 
" Majority Resolution " ; in early August the 
Pope made his appeal; everywhere Stockholm 
was debated. Kerensky's failure was already 
apparent, and although Pershing was in France, 
he was a general without an army. Caporetto 
was followed swiftly by Byng's failure at Cam- 
brai and by the Bolshevist revolution. There 
was no longer an eastern front. The Italian 
front seemed to be a liability; Saloniki was re- 

11 



12 The Political Scene 

garded cynically as a great Allied internment 
camp. Within the Central Powers there were 
undoubted signs of popular revolt, which called 
forth a certain feeble response from the Em- 
peror Charles and Count Czernin. 

By Christmas the yearning for peace had risen 
high in all countries, and the opening of the 
parleys at Brest-Litovsk stirred men deeply. 
Beneath the surface the efforts at peace were 
continual : General Smuts had gone to meet Count 
Mensdorff in Switzerland; Mr. Lloyd George 
and Lord Milner were inclined to abandon 
Russia, and Lord Lansdowne had definitely 
announced that if " civilization " — i.e. the old 
European order, was to be maintained, an imme- 
diate peace was necessary. All the while Luden- 
dorff was moving divisions to the western front. 
The ten weeks from December first to mid- 
February were the time of supreme decision. 
They saw the final attempt to save the old system 
and avert European revolution. 

Three figures dominated : Ludendorff, Clemen- 
ceau and Wilson. The choice lay between a peace 
which yielded to Germany the organization of 
the East and a frightful military gamble on the 



Peace as of January, IQl8 13 

western front, the issue of which no man could 
foresee. Clemenceau forced the issue, and be- 
cause he succeeded he will belong to the assembly 
of great men. Wilson's position was more com- 
plicated. He never for an instant yielded to the 
suggestion of an unclean peace at the expense of 
Russia, but he had been affected by the reports 
of feeling in England, by the spectacle of the 
early days at Brest-Litovsk, he had by December 
acquired interest in the Reichstag Resolution of 
July; and he had a certain lingering hope in 
Czernin. He did not intend to yield to Prussia, 
but he did undoubtedly see that unless the Allied 
cause were morally unified by diplomacy, the 
combined peace and military offensives from Ber- 
lin and Vienna might disintegrate the Allied 
peoples. More than that, he too was willing to 
gamble. Ludendorff and Clemenceau were set 
for a death struggle in which all might be lost. He 
determined to try the diplomatic adventure of 
offering a separate peace to Austria. 

It was for this setting that the Congressional 
Addresses of December fourth and January 
eighth were prepared. The invitation to Czernin 
was plain : 



14 The Political Scene 

" We owe it, however, to ourselves to say that 
we do not wish in any way to impair or to rear- 
range the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is no 
affair of ours what they do with their own life, 
either industrially or politically." 

Early in January Mr. Lloyd George spoke in 
the same vein, thus abandoning for the moment 
the clear purpose of the Allied reply to the Presi- 
dent a year previous. Mr. Wilson followed with 
the address of January eighth in which he offered 
to negotiate with representatives of the Reichstag 
majority on the basis of the Fourteen Points. It 
was as events showed a summons to the dead, for 
the majority had disappeared by that time, and 
the abortive strikes of early January had made 
Ludendorff military dictator of Germany. 

It is a very significant fact that the project of 
a League of Nations is merely the Fourteenth of 
the articles, and is treated as a kind of seal upon 
the peace when made. Clearly Mr. Wilson had 
not yet arrived at the conclusion that the League 
is a means of making peace as well as a guaran- 
tee when peace has been made. The reason is 
that the Fourteen Points were conceived as a 
just settlement in a world not radically different 



Peace as of January, IQl8 15 



in structure from that out of which the war had 
arisen. This was the only kind of peace possible 
in January, 1918. At bottom it would have been 
an Agreement of the Powers, and nothing more. 
But the peace which has actually to be initiated in 
Paris to-day is the result of the 1918 campaign. 
The Fourteen Points were written before that 
campaign was fought, and that campaign in its 
military, diplomatic, and social phases was the 
most penetrating conflict in modern history. Its 
conclusion was radical, and out of it nothing less 
could result than the necessity of creating a 
new framework for international society. The 
decision to fight that campaign meant that the 
world had burned its bridges. 

They were not burned in the Fourteen Points. 
The sharpest proof of this is to be found in 
Article II, which reads: 

"Absolute freedom of navigation upon the 
seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and 
in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole 
or in part by international action for the enforce- 
ment of international covenants. 3 ' 

This article opens with an attempt to safe- 
guard the rights of neutrals. That much of it 



1 6 The Political Scene 

supposes a world not controlled by a League of 
Nations. But the portion beginning " except as 
the seas may be closed " foreshadows Article XVI 
of the constitution drafted at Paris w r here the 
boycott is provided as a sanction. As the propo- 
sition stood on January eighth it seems to imply 
united and occasional action by the League. 
Above all it recognized war as a normal institu- 
tion. In the document from Paris the League's 
action is virtually complete. 

I venture this criticism simply because it illus- 
trates a truth of special importance to us at this 
moment: that the war became revolutionary (in 
the exact sense of the word) only as a result of 
the 19 1 8 campaign; that previously statesmen 
saw the League of Nations as a useful annex to 
the structure of peace; that after 19 18 it became 
the central framework of the structure. 

Early last winter the best that leading states- 
men planned was a balance of claims, an adjust- 
ment of a few outstanding grievances, and the 
acceptance of a number of general principles 
resting upon nothing more than common agree- 
ment. That is why the territorial sections of 
Mr. Wilson's program are in so far as they affect 



Peace as of January, IQl8 17 

the Great Powers chiefly self-denying ordinances. 
The reference to Alsace-Lorraine is carefully 
phrased so as to exclude the annexation of the 
Saar basin, for it is the wrong of 1871 and not 
the wrong of 181 5 which is to be righted. Italy's 
portion conspicuously ignores strategic consider- 
ations; the Russian section avoids mention of the 
border nations, and except for the establishment 
of Poland, assumes a reconstitution of the former 
boundaries of the Empire. Serbia is promised 
the outlet so long denied her, but Jugo-Slavia is 
not mentioned because the Austro-Hungarian 
Empire's integrity is presupposed. Rumania 
retains her old boundaries vis-a-vis Hungary. 
The Czecho-Slovaks do not appear at all. The 
dismemberment of Turkey is not specified, and 
the only new state definitely demanded is Poland. 
Here the phrase " indisputably Polish popula- 
tions " expressly precludes those geographical 
fantasies which reach into Lithuanian and 
Ukrainian territory. 

Finally the Fourteen Points do not deal with 
the mechanism of economic life which the short- 
age of ships, food and materials compelled the 
Allies to organize in 19 18. That mechanism 



1 8 The Political Scene 

barely existed when the Points were formulated. 
Its bearing upon the whole peace was not under- 
stood then except by a few far-sighted men like 
Mr. Dwight Morrow and Mr. George Rublee. 
Its bearing is not adequately realized today, as 
the constitution of the League indicates. Mr. 
Wilson's ideal, then as now, both in international 
and in domestic affairs was that New Freedom 
which is the Old Manchester. But even the fight- 
ing edge of that ideal — " the removal, so far as 
possible, of all economic barriers " has been 
blunted by the discovery that not much removal 
is possible. 

The practice of international cooperation in 
trade advanced extraordinarily in 1918. But the 
political appreciation of it lags behind, and we 
approach the modern period with a new politics 
and an unrevised industrialism. Not all of our 
thinking is as swift as events. 



Ill 

ABSOLUTE VICTORY 

REFORM, not reconstruction, was the in- 
tention a little over a year ago. But 
Germany under Ludendorrr* had no such 
tame ambition. Facing towards the East she 
assessed the materials of empire from Finland 
to Turkestan. Instead of the comparatively 
modest project of Hamburg to Bagdad she 
toyed with a bewildering choice of routes and 
markets and materials and jobs across the 
Ukraine to the Caucasus. Such a jig-saw puzzle 
of thrones and concessions never delighted the 
mind of the craziest diplomat. The only diffi- 
culty was that the Allies on the west had hold of 
Germany's coat tails. To shake them off Luden- 
dorfl determined to strike in Picardy for the 
Empire of the East. 

His margin of reserves and materials was too 
small; a superiority of a little over 300,000 
bayonets was not enough to complete the break 

19 



20 The Political Scene 

through. But it was enough to frighten the 
Allies into unity, and bring America enormously 
to France. By June fifteenth, in spite of the de- 
feat in Champagne, Foch commanded more light- 
ing men than Ludendorff, and the superiority was 
steadily growing. The German government 
undoubtedly knew the figures, and a little over 
a week later Kuhlmann made his extraordinary 
speech renouncing military victory while the 
German army was bombarding Paris. The 
aggressive faction in Allied circles had guessed 
a German weakness from the diminished inten- 
sity of the June battles west of Soissons, and so 
a counter-offensive was planned. It was even 
believed at the end of June, and so prophesied, 
that the German collapse might occur by the end 
of September. Three objectives were laid down 
— the reduction of the salients at Montdidier, 
the Marne, and St. Mihiel. Then through ex- 
cellent intelligence work on the part of the 
French, the German attack of mid-July was 
completely foreseen, and brilliantly smashed by 
General Gouraud's army. The Allied offen- 
sive opened immediately, with extraordinary 
results. 



Absolute Victory 21 



Concurrently, the diplomacy of the Allies was 
being rearranged on the axiom of a complete 
victory. The references to Austria-Hungary 
made by Mr. Lloyd George and the President 
during the winter had depressed the groups 
working for the " victoire integrate." These 
groups had always been as radically anti-Haps- 
burg as they were anti-Hohenzollern. Their 
organ was The New Europe, and they made it 
the one most indispensable periodical in the 
English-speaking world. Its contributors were 
gathered from all parts of Europe, and many of 
them were themselves leaders in the work by 
which Allied and American diplomacy was turned 
during 19 18 from the policy of compromise with 
Austria to that of dismemberment. Masaryk, 
Benes, Trumbic, Steed, Seton- Watson and others 
led the way with a skill, an expert knowledge, 
and a vision which made the rest of us their 
pupils and their debtors. 

Their task was to form a working partnership 
between the nationalist forces of Central Europe 
and the Allied cause, to disrupt middle Europe 
from within while the German army was held 
and finally beaten in France. They realized 



22 The Political Scene 

before most of us that the apparent strength of 
Prussian Germany had the fatal weakness of 
reposing upon the subjugation of smaller peoples 
through the alliance with German Austria and 
the Magyar oligarchy. They knew that the 
destruction of absolutism meant the break up of 
that military and bureaucratic alliance through 
which these nations were held down. And they 
knew equally well that once this power was 
wrecked it would be necessary to rebuild the 
whole diplomatic structure of Europe. 

In 19 1 8 they set about wrecking it. Once the 
decision was taken to fight the war to a conclu- 
sion many men came to their assistance who 
were not primarily interested in the freeing of 
the nations. Thus they were able gradually to 
convince the statesmen of the West that the 
encouragement of rebellion would be an impor- 
tant military factor in the final result. But 
before an alliance with these nations could actu- 
ally be realized a formidable series of diplomatic 
obstacles had to be overcome. The full story of 
the manceuvers by which this was partially 
achieved in 19 18 is an intricate tale, and all the 
facts are as yet unrevealed. 



Absolute Victory 23 

But the main outlines are known and can be 
told : Two nationalities had strategic importance 
— the Czecho-Slovaks and the Jugo-Slavs, both 
because of their geographical position, their in- 
ternal strength, and the definiteness of their 
aspirations. The Czecho-Slovaks were known to 
be one of the best educated and most trustworthy 
peoples in the world — politically as mature as any 
nation on the continent. They had, moreover, a 
most important advantage over the Jugo-Slavs; 
their territory did not touch Allied territory at 
any point, and there was no Allied group of any 
significance interested in thwarting them. The 
case of the Jugo-Slavs was complicated by their 
territorial conflict with Italy, and by the internal 
difficulty arising out of dynastic jealousies at the 
court of the Serbian kingdom. 

The problem soon narrowed itself to the status 
of the Jugo-Slavs. If that could be adjusted the 
Allies would have as allies the two nations of 
Central Europe through whose lands ran the 
chief arteries of the German-Austrian system. 
But the Jugo-Slav question turned on the validity 
of the Treaty of London which was the price of 
Italy's participation in the war. Would Italy 



24 The Political Scene 

renounce those portions of the treaty which 
assigned to her lands inhabited by Jugo-Slavs? 
If she would, Austria would soon be out of the 
war. If she refused untold complications faced 
the Allies. For ethnic justice to the Southern 
Slavs became the touchstone of Allied sincerity, 
and every small nation watched the diplomatic 
debate anxiously for evidence as to whether any 
one of the major allies would yield annexationist 
claims for the sake of the principles they all 
professed. 

England and France could not officially press 
Italy to accept a revision of the treaty because 
they had signed the treaty. America was hesi- 
tant and at first not particularly well informed, 
while the more important figures in the embassy 
at Rome were, as so often happens to American 
embassies abroad, very much under the influence 
of fashionable chauvinism at the capital. The 
policy adopted by the reformers was shrewd, and 
inspired by a genuine devotion to the larger 
interests and honor of Italy. They set about 
inducing Italy herself to take the leadership in 
cementing the alliance between the Austrian 
nationalities and the Entente. The first step was 



Absolute Victory 2$ 

the pact concluded on March seventh, 191 8, be- 
tween Dr. Torre, representing a committee of the 
Italian Parliament, and the Jugo-Slav leader, Dr. 
Trumbic. Italian liberals within the Chamber of 
Deputies and in the press well understood the 
peril to Italy and to Europe of Baron Sonnino's 
insistence upon his pound of flesh. They coop- 
erated loyally, and in early April the Congress 
of the Oppressed Nationalities of Austria- 
Hungary was held in Rome. The resolution of 
that Congress demanded the dismemberment of 
Austria-Hungary by the constructive liberation 
of the oppressed Austro-Hungarian nationalities. 
The Italian Premier blessed the deliberations. 
The result was highly important in Central 
Europe; it made Vienna furious and fearful. 
Italy's action, however, was not altogether 
official, for the Treaty of London had not been 
renounced. At the end of May the United States 
recognized the aspirations of the subject peoples, 
but the language employed was vague, and at the 
Versailles council of early June Baron Sonnino 
refused to assent to the complete recognition of 
the Jugo-Slavs, taking refuge behind Mr. Lan- 
sing's obscurity. Nevertheless, the result had 



26 The Political Scene 

been sufficient to cause the disaffection of Slav 
troops, and the offensive on the Piave in June was 
materially weakened by the propaganda of the 
Allies. At the end of June Mr. Lansing cleared 
up the obscurity, and definitely stated that the 
liberation of these peoples was an American war 
aim. 

In August, under the influence primarily of 
Lord Northcliffe and Mr. Wickham Steed, 
another attempt was made to induce Baron Son- 
nino to recognize the claims of the Jugo-Slavs. 
This precipitated a violent political controversy in 
Italy. At the same time Great Britain and the 
United States formally recognized the Czecho- 
slovaks as belligerent allies. This action caused 
dismay in Vienna, and was the cause of the post- 
ponement of peace proposals, which finally came 
from Austria a month later. For Austria had 
determined early in August to ask for peace, and 
had secured the consent of Germany following 
the success of the Allied counter-offensive. The 
note was already drafted when Britain and 
America recognized the government of Masaryk, 
and by implication declared for the dismember- 
ment of the Dual Empire. The argument of the 



Absolute Victory 27 

Austrian note was based upon the speeches of 
January in which the integrity of the Empire 
was promised. The recognition of the Czecho- 
slovaks made it meaningless, and so the delivery 
of the note was delayed until mid-September, 
when it was launched virtually unamended in a 
gesture of despair. At about the same time Italy 
issued an official communique recognizing Jugo- 
slav aspirations, and the Allied world waited for 
an Italian offensive against the disintegrating 
Austrian troops. 

During the summer, the diplomatic campaign 
had been extended to Bulgaria. It is not gen- 
erally known just what was the character of the 
secret manceuvers which led up to the success of 
Franchet d'Esperey's attack in Macedonia, though 
the disaffection of Bulgaria had been prophesied 
ever since the fall of Radoslavov and the visits 
of Ferdinand to Germany. Some spoke know- 
ingly of the cavalry of St. George. At any rate 
with the fall of Bulgaria the resurrection of 
Rumania became possible, and Hungary was in 
peril. Then the Ukraine revolted against the 
foraging detachments, and at that moment Mr. 
Wilson made the sensational speech of Septem- 



28 The Political Scene 

ber twenty-seventh, which was read in Germany 
during the first days of October. 

This speech with its extraordinary moderation 
coincided with the first successes of the American 
army between the Argonne Forest and the river 
Meuse. That gigantic battle had as its purpose 
the defeat of LudendorfFs plan to retreat to the 
Meuse, to establish a new defensive line for the 
winter and negotiate peace from behind his 
defenses. When the opening phase of the 
American attack carried through the first three 
positions Ludendorff demanded an armistice, and 
the government of Prince Max was called upon 
to accomplish it. 



IV 

" THE NATURAL MASTER OF THE 
HOUSE " 

MAX did what Austria had tried to do 
a few weeks earlier. He tried to secure 
peace as of January instead of October. And 
though in form the armistice was signed on 
that basis, in reality, the peace which is actually 
being made, must, because of the revolutionary 
events of 191 8, differ radically from that which 
was contemplated when the Fourteen Points 
were written. After the military decision of late 
October, and in face of the Lorraine offensive 
which had been prepared and of the revolution 
within the Empire, Germany did in fact surren- 
der as unconditionally as Austria. The only 
lasting significance of the armistice negotiations 
was the voluntary acceptance by the European 
Allies of a few negative obligations and certain 
general principles. The successive renewals of 
the armistice show that the first terms were 
dictated unconditionally. 

29 



30 The Political Scene 

The original armistice was prepared hastily; 
French views seem to have prevailed in its mili- 
tary features; British in its naval; and American 
in its political. In the Austrian armistice it 
appears that Italy was given a free hand, with 
the result that the line of occupation had a fatal 
resemblance with certain additions to the line 
of annexationist claims. The Treaty of London 
appeared at the decisive moment with renewed 
vigor. 

November was a period of great anxiety. The 
victory had come swiftly. It had brought the 
necessity of reconstructing Europe externally 
and internally. And almost everyone was dazed, 
tired, and suspicious. The most serious feature 
of all, to speak frankly, was an Anglo-American 
irritation in official circles, for the peace of the 
world depended upon a working partnership 
between the only two Powers which had the 
resources for a creative statesmanship. The 
President arrived at the very moment when com- 
mon counsel was least, and national propaganda 
most evident. It was a time when the tendency 
was to pull apart, and get out of the war helter- 
skelter. The same weariness of mind which 



" The Natural Master of the House " 31 

accounts for the President's address to Congress 
before sailing, the same individualism, was epi- 
demic in Europe. 

His presence soon changed the atmosphere, and 
by January America and Britain had ceased 
pinching each other, and were at work. The 
great unifier was the determination to make the 
League of Nations the basis of peace. For here 
was a task which reached beyond national vanity 
into the future. It was a task which lifted men's 
minds once again to the exalted aims which had 
consoled them for the war, and threw into a 
humane perspective the more immediate demands 
which had become so clamorous. 

The Allied conference in Paris began in Jan- 
uary to build peace in the only way that it could 
be built. Faced with a world in which govern- 
ment had disappeared over immense areas, in 
which the old diplomatic system was ruined, the 
statesmen were forced to start in by creating the 
tool with which peace could be administered, 
They knew that there are no final solutions to be 
had just now. A rigid treaty of peace cannot be 
written when there is no stable government any- 
where east of the Rhine. No man knows what 



32 The Political Scene 

Germany is to be, nor Russia, nor the twenty 
odd nationalities of Eastern Europe and Nearer 
Asia. No man can possibly foresee, not even 
Mr. James Beck, what adjustments will be 
required in the years ahead; none can predict 
what revolution will do to the process and method 
of trade, nor does anyone know what will be 
the movements of immigration, or the condition 
of capital, or the character and policies of any 
government five years hence. There is a world- 
wide regrouping in progress. It cannot be con- 
trolled by agreement alone. It requires a con- 
tinuing series of decisions, and a machinery for 
executing them, and that is the essence of the 
League of Nations. 

It is a constitution of common action adopted 
by the stable powers in a period of unpredictable 
change. To suppose that the conference was 
merely fumbling with a vague future under the 
pressure of idealists is a complete misunderstand- 
ing. The truth has been stated by the man whose 
statesmanship has been one of the happiest 
resources of Europe and perhaps the decisive 
influence in the constitution drafted at Paris. 
This man is Lieutenant-General J. C. Smuts. In 



" The Natural Master of the House " 33 

a pamphlet published the middle of December, 
19 18, he states the core of the matter as it con- 
fronts the Peace Conference: 

"Europe is being liquidated, and the League 
of Nations must be the heir to this great estate. 
The peoples left behind by the decomposition of 
Russia, Austria, and Turkey are mostly untrained 
politically; many of them are either incapable or 
deficient in power of self -government; they are 
mostly destitute and will require much nursing 
toward economic and political independence. If 
there is going to be a scramble among the victors 
for this loot, the future of Europe must indeed 
be despaired of. The application of the spoils 
system at this most solemn juncture of the his- 
tory of the world; a repartition of Europe at a 
moment when Europe is bleeding at every pore as 
a result of partitions less than half a century old, 
would indeed be incorrigible madness on the part 
of rulers, and enough to drive the torn and 
broken peoples of the world to that despair of the 
state which is the motive power behind Russian 
Bolshevism. Surely the only statesmanlike course 
is to make the League of Nations the reversion- 
ary in the broadest sense of these empires. In 



34 The Political Scene 



this debacle of the old Europe the League of 
Nations is no longer an outsider or stranger, but 
the natural master of the house. It becomes 
naturally and obviously the solvent for a problem 
which no other means will solve." 



THE COVENANT 

IT is useless to discuss the covenant as if it 
were an abstract document snatched from 
the blue. It is an arrangement devised by men 
who knew the condition of things, knew that 
years of trouble are ahead, knew that no final 
settlement would be made now by mortal man, 
knew that Europe would revert to anarchy unless 
the governments of the world agreed to meet 
regularly, exchange information, make decisions 
together, and cooperate in the execution of the 
treaty. They understood that if each nation 
went its own way and the secret jealousies re- 
vived, if the old suspicions were allowed to fester 
in each foreign office and in each general staff, if 
heads of governments did not bind themselves to 
meet around a table and speak face to face, then 
there was little hope that the world could rise 
out of the prostration of the war. 

They provided, therefore, first of all for the 

35 



36 The Political Scene 

presence in one city of men who can speak for 
the governments. This in itself is of transcend- 
ent importance. For modern diplomacy cannot 
continue to transact its business through the 
machinery of embassies and state departments 
alone. No decision can be made on time, no 
discussion can take place without involved mis- 
understanding by the old method of scattered 
information and criss-cross correspondence be- 
tween negotiators. You have only to read the 
dispatches of the Twelve Days which preceded 
the war to realize the paralysis which results 
from the lack of any one place where the great 
decisions of mankind can be centralized. If 
there is one method of insuring the irritation of 
ignorance and suspicion it is long distance tele- 
graphic communication between the heads of 
governments. The mere act of committing ideas 
to paper for the scrutiny of biographers stiffens 
the mind and arouses the disastrous desire to pose 
nobly. There is little good humor in official 
dispatches; like most newspaper editorials, they 
are sick with infallibility, and there is nothing 
worse for the peace of the world than two infal- 
lible diplomats uttering strong sentiment at each 



The Covenant 37 



other from opposite ends of a cable. Writing 
u state papers," for posterity, instead of doing 
business, is bad enough, but when you add to it 
the sheer nuisance of coding, decoding, and trans- 
lating, with the correlative arts of cracking codes 
and listening-in, you have produced a very subtle 
engine of mischief. 

Then, too, the atmosphere in which embassies 
exist invites intrigue. In each capital there is a 
little cosmopolitan village known as the diplo- 
matic set where gossip is a means of social 
prestige, and whispering a delight. Few can resist 
the lure of a good " inside " rumor, with all it 
implies of secrecy and knowing a perfectly 
tremendously awful lot. That is how diplomacy 
derives its false glamour. The ordinary business 
between nations may be difficult, it is nevertheless 
a concrete and practical business. But in the 
dinners and week-end parties of a capital that 
business is made into an artificial game for the 
titillation of a bored group of privileged people. 
By them it is refined and subtilized and screened 
in personality, as if the happiness of mankind 
were not at stake. 

All this is complicated further by the employ- 



38 The Political Scene 

ment of propaganda to manipulate opinion. Dur- 
ing this war the deliberate manufacture of 
opinion both for export and for home consump- 
tion has reached the proportion of a major indus- 
trial operation. This is not the place, nor is it 
yet possible without breach of confidence to dis- 
cuss international propaganda freely. But some 
day the technic must be investigated if the 
judgments of peoples are to escape persistent 
exploitation. When the story is told, it will cover 
a range of subjects extending from legal censor- 
ship to reptile press, from wilful fabrication to 
the purchase of writers, from outright subsidy to 
the award of ribbons. It will include entertain- 
ment, and a vast amount of stimulated snobbish- 
ness, and the right way of conducting sight- 
seeing tours. The art of befuddlement engages 
able men and draws large appropriations. There 
are in practically all countries Ministries of 
Befuddlement generally presided over by per- 
sonal representatives of the leading statesman. 
What they emit makes unconfused dealing 
between nations most difficult. 

It is necessary consequently to break through 
all this and establish a personal meeting of repre- 



The Covenant 39 



sentatives. Two men doing business will write 
and write and write, and listen to what their 
friends say at the club, and what their wives 
heard from somebody else's wife, and go ever 
deeper into confusion. Unless they meet and 
talk it out, they never will catch up with each 
other's misunderstandings. So with govern- 
ments, and that is why a league of peace cannot 
get along without a board of delegates and a 
standing committee as its executive. There is no 
other basis even with the best of intentions for 
common action and decent intercourse. If the 
nations are to work together responsible leaders 
must confront one another. 



VI 

A WORLD POOL 

AND if they meet, they cannot afford to 
appear in shining armor each morning 
after breakfast. For one thing the cost is pro- 
hibitive. To start in where the war had led 
us, to pile up heavy artillery, tanks, airplanes, gas, 
transports, dreadnoughts, submarines, destroyers 
for a war as great as the possibilities of science, 
is a proposal that no statesman in Europe dares 
to contemplate. That is left for theorists like 
Mr. Henry A. Wise Wood, and I suspect for 
him only in the absence of the tax bills. There 
cannot be another race of armaments — that is 
flat. There is no need to argue from reasons of 
humanity. Those who dream of renewing the 
competition, and contemplate calmly another war 
fought by our children, are impervious to such 
arguments, and no one need waste ink and breath 
trying to convince them. The argument does not 

40 



A World Pool 41 

lie between right and wrong, but between the 
possible and the impossible. The world cannot 
arm competitively. 

Nor can it re-establish a balance of power 
unless the supreme madness descends upon the 
English-speaking peoples. I take it that the 
Treaty of Peace will contain provisions for the 
disarmament of Germany as a world power. As 
far as we can see into the future Russia will be 
militarily impotent, and nobody in his senses, I 
suppose, intends to arm Africa, or to permit any 
aggressive armament in Asia. There are in fact 
but two great states with the resources and the 
wealth for really modern munitions manufac- 
ture. These are the British Empire and the 
United States. The only possible way in 
which a balance could be created now is by 
putting these two powers up as the leaders 
of rival coalitions. If this idea is abandoned 
for the nonsense that it is, if Britain and 
America work out their common purposes, then 
such a preponderance of power is created as to 
make all notion of a balance impossible. An 
Anglo-American entente means the substitution 
of a pool for a balance, and in that pool will be 



42 The Political Scene 

found the ultimate force upon which rests the 
League of Nations. For if the united power of 
Britain and America — potential and actual — is 
wielded for the ends they now both officially 
profess, they are assured of the active assistance 
of the smaller nations everywhere. The reason 
for this is that they exercise a form of force — 
sea power — which is irresistible in conflict and 
yet cannot be used permanently to conscript and 
enslave alien peoples. Nor does it rest internally 
upon the existence of a large caste in control of 
a regimented population. Sea power can be all- 
powerful without destroying the liberties of the 
nation which exercises it, and only free peoples 
can be trusted with great power. In spite of the 
comparison between navalism and militarism 
there are these fundamental differences between 
them, and they are appreciated by the bulk of 
the world. 

A question remains, which may be put in this 
fashion: What assurance is there that this pool- 
ing of force can be maintained in an emergency? 
The answer is that the covenant provides a pro- 
cedure in disputes, the final object of which is 
to insure delay accompanied by publicity. It is a 



A World Pool 43 

mechanism for airing quarrels in their earlier 
stages. Here is the ultimate guarantee upon 
which the whole project rests. It assumes as its 
working theory that democratic faith in regard 
to the causes of war, which says that aggression 
is the work of a minority; that the masses in no 
nation have anything to gain by conquest, and 
that the masses would refuse such wars if they 
had a chance to examine their pretexts, and put 
pressure upon their governments. This faith 
may be unfounded. It may be that there is a 
universal pugnacity which requires war for its 
satisfaction, and the League may in the course 
of time fail to keep the peace. Perhaps, but the 
peoples who to-day press against every govern- 
ment, and may to-morrow control them, hold 
this faith, and it has prevailed in the delibera- 
tions at Paris. 

The most radical feature of the covenant 
springs from this faith. 

"It is hereby also declared and agreed to be 
the friendly right of each of the high con-, 
trading parties to draw the attention of the body 
of delegates or the Executive council to any cir- 
cumstances affecting international intercourse 



44 The Political Scene 

which threaten to disturb international peace or 
the good understanding between nations upon 
which peace depends." 

That clause is the most precious in the whole 
document because it strikes so deeply at the isola- 
tion which breeds arrogance. It is by far the 
most revolutionary idea which could be intro- 
duced into the comity of nations, because a seal 
is put upon the truth that the peace of the world 
is a vital interest of all nations. The active 
forces of peace are released by it. According to 
this new doctrine it will not be necessary for any 
people, neutral in a dispute, to sit by helplessly 
and see a conflagration prepared which may burn 
down its own homes. It abolishes those alleged 
private quarrels which in the end involve every- 
body. It states flatly that America, for example, 
is not to remain mute while some diplomat fixes 
up a war in the Balkans which cannot be ended 
until two million Americans are on foreign soil. 
It says that international duelling is over, and 
that every nation can discuss the causes of a fight 
before the fight takes place. Above all it enables 
any government in the League to arouse the pub- 
lic opinion of the world wherever a condition 



A World Pool 45 

appears which threatens the peace. The faith is 
that no quarrel can grow big enough to justify 
war when the peoples who must do the fighting 
know about it soon enough. 



VII 

ALTERNATIVES 

REMAINS the question of our own adher- 
ence to the covenant. This is not to be 
answered easily, and I think we may well 
congratulate ourselves upon the appearance 
of a genuine and respectable opposition. It will 
insure a thorough examination of the whole prob- 
lem and we shall enter the League, if at all, as a 
democratic people should. 

i It is necessary, therefore, to make a somewhat 
tedious analysis of America's position in the 
world as a result of the war. 

Previous to 1900 the continent of Europe was 
divided into coalitions — the Triplice, consisting 
of Germany, Austria, and Italy, and the Dual 
Alliance of France and Russia. England still 
played the role of guardian over the balance of 
power. In the years leading up to the war, the 
aggressiveness of Germany grew with her power, 
and moved in two directions — towards Turkey 

46 



Alternatives 47 



across the Balkans, where it conflicted with 
Russian claims, and towards naval power where 
it threatened England's security. Gradually Eng- 
land was drawn away from mere guardian- 
ship, and forced to throw her weight to Russia 
and France. The balance tipped so far in favor 
of Germany that England's whole weight had 
to be thrown into the scales to right it. Even the 
defection of Italy, foreshadowed in the Tripoli- 
tan war, did not restrain the increasing aggress- 
iveness of the Central Powers. So when the war 
began, Europe was divided into two coalitions 
of such nearly equal strength that three years of 
furious warfare failed to break the deadlock. In 
all this America was the neutral, and though the 
issue between the two coalitions involved the 
existence of small nations, and the survival of 
liberal governments, there was no body of con- 
siderable opinion which proposed to enter the war 
on those grounds alone. 

It was only when Germany brought the sub- 
marine into use, and threatened to disintegrate 
sea power that Americans felt themselves men- 
aced. There was no difference in principle here 
between Roosevelt and Wilson. Mr. Roosevelt 



48 The Political Scene 

would have gone to war when the Lusitania was 
sunk; Mr. Wilson went to war when diplomacy 
had failed to mitigate the submarine attack. 
Neither of them proposed to go to war before 
the submarine appeared. As President, Mr. 
Roosevelt would perhaps have protested against 
the violation of Belgium : Mr. Wilson to-day may 
feel that he wishes he had done it. But both, 
in fact, were driven to action only when the 
threat against sea power became real. 

This is a very significant matter, for a response 
of this kind arises out of the deepest political 
interests of a nation. Both were American 
statesmen, and neither felt a real menace to 
American life until the control of the seas was 
endangered. The conflict came home to us, as 
the saying is, when the aggression reached the 
world's highways and struck at the basis of 
mastery by the naval powers. Then we entered 
the war, saying that the autocracy of Germany 
must be overthrown and the rights of democracy 
safeguarded. What we have perhaps not so 
clearly realized, and yet must realize, is that the 
protection of democracy, as we understand it, is 
built upon the joint administration of sea power 



Alternatives 49 



by the British Empire and America. Our own 
Monroe Doctrine is built upon it from its incep- 
tion to the present day. Though we often talk 
as if we were the only great power in the western 
hemisphere, as a matter of plain fact we are the 
closest neighbors of the British Empire at every 
vital point. So habitual and so unobtrusive has 
this relation become that we almost forget its 
existence. But it exists mightily, and if we have 
enjoyed a century of immunity from European 
aggressions the real cause lies in the successful 
maintenance by England of a balance of power 
upon the continent. We have never had the navy 
or the army to enforce the Monroe Doctrine 
against a European coalition and it is a mischie- 
vous form of self-deception to proceed on the 
theory that the Monroe Doctrine has been 
respected simply because we willed it. It was a 
principle of English policy fully as much as ours, 
because the English realized that the security of 
the Empire over large areas was protected by it. 

Now, after the most serious threat ever 
directed against sea power, Britain and America 
emerge the undisputed leaders of world politics. 
Their common purposes are irresistible, and the 



$0 The Political Scene 

destiny of all governments is for the moment in 
their hands. 

How that joint power shall be used is the heart 
of the world's problem. How, then, shall it be 
used ? There are some who would seem to favor 
a course by which we should find ourselves pre- 
paring for war with Britain. They do not say 
so publicly, to be sure, but they dream of sup- 
planting Great Britain as mistress of the seas. 
That means war. They may not face the fact 
now, but it is a fact — sea power cannot be 
divided permanently. Britain may wield it; 
America, after a disastrous war, might snatch it 
from her. The two together can wield it. But 
they cannot each wield parts of it for any length 
of time, because after a period of competition 
war seems preferable to perpetual menace. The 
control of the seas is so delicate and so funda- 
mental that it is impossible to leave it in dispute. 
Naval competition makes naval war, not a prob- 
ability, but a certainty. 

Another school, realizing this and smacking its 
lips over the concentration of power under Anglo- 
American control, looks to a permanent alliance 
as the basis of a good headstrong foreign policy. 



Alternatives 51 



Since America and Britain temporarily control 
the world's destiny, why not continue, and profit 
by it? This is the policy of imperialist alliance, 
and it leads straight to those very entanglements 
against which Washington warned the nation. A 
mere offensive and defensive alliance between two 
or three powers means in practice that each has 
to back the other's ambitions and mistakes. It is 
a method of whetting the worst appetites of each, 
and of committing both to all the troublesome- 
ness of either. Such a policy would soon awaken 
against us first the jealousy and then the enmity 
of the excluded nations. The masses of the world 
are stirring; they will not long trust themselves 
to any selfish combination of powers, no matter 
how idealistic their present purposes may be. 
An alliance would be a temporary thing, for there 
is too much disruptive energy in the world to 
tolerate it long. 

There is only one other course, and that is to 
make Anglo-American sea power the nucleus of 
world organization, to guarantee its uses before 
the whole world, to bind ourselves in honor to 
employ it only for the security of all nations. 
That is what the League does. The actual own- 



52 The Political Scene 

ership of power remains in British and American 
hands, but its uses are stipulated in a covenant. 
By this we avoid the dangers of competition and 
alliance, while retaining the possession of the 
necessary force against an emergency in case the 
League were destroyed. Anglo-American sea 
power, fortified by the abolition of neutrality, 
becomes the ultimate guarantor of the world's 
affairs. It is the force by which such liberties 
as we may devise are finally secured. 

This is not the old isolation. There is no 
denying that. But so far as mortal man can see 
into an extremely perplexing future, this pro- 
gram can if intelligently administered be made to 
serve the same ends. At the beginning of the 
nineteenth century we were a weak people and 
the neighbors of a string of weak republics which 
had just secured their independence. In Europe 
a great war had ended with the triumph on the 
continent of autocracies which hated republics 
and were resolved to crush them. Taking ad- 
vantage of England's position and her liberalism 
President Monroe proclaimed the doctrine that 
this hemisphere must remain safe for democracy. 
Now, a century later, another great war has 



Alternatives 53 



closed in which those autocracies are crushed and 
a string of weak republics has risen from their 
ruins. We stand as the richest and strongest 
power in the world, and our intervention decided 
the issue. In spite of our strength we have re- 
mained true to those very things which we 
proclaimed when we* were young and weak. 
European peoples seeing this miracle, for mira- 
cle it is to the continental mind, have turned 
to us with such faith as was never before given 
to a distant people. They have heard an Ameri- 
can president announce their liberation and prom- 
ise their safety, and while the war was engaged 
they heard no dissent because in fact there was 
none. They have taken his word as America's, 
and built their hopes upon it. 

Perhaps it was wrong of him to arouse such 
expectations. Certainly it would have been wiser 
if he had acted less singly in committing the 
nation. But nevertheless, there was opportunity 
to object, and no formal objection was made. 
Our honor is consequently very seriously involved 
in the President's promises. 



VIII 

AMENDMENTS 

IT cannot be asserted too often that the indis- 
pensable action to be taken at Paris is to 
provide for a continuous meeting. Nothing else 
in the Twenty-Six Articles can be regarded as 
beyond the reach of criticism and amendment. 
Let it be agreed now, that in one form or another 
the contacts which exist shall not be broken, and 
it becomes not only possible but desirable that the 
covenant should be subjected to drastic examina- 
tion. Revision need not delay the making of the 
Peace Treaty, because the Congress of Versailles 
— if it does not adjourn — can adequately per- 
form the immediate tasks of the League. For at 
bottom the League is merely the conference made 
permanent, and the conference is quite competent 
to make the necessary decisions of the next half 
a dozen months, while a more adequate instru- 
ment is provided out of the provisional text con- 
tained in the Twenty-Six Articles. 

54 



Amendments 55 



The document itself exhibits all the marks of 
haste and patching. General principles, agencies, 
procedure are scattered through the various arti- 
cles in considerable confusion, and one has to 
search through most of the covenant to discover 
the complete doctrine on any specific point. For 
example, why having read Articles VII, VIII, 
and IX on the subject of armaments, does one 
suddenly discover another provision on the sub- 
ject in XVIII? What is the meaning of " free- 
dom of transit and equitable treatment " in XXI, 
and how does it relate itself to X where " political 
independence" is guaranteed? Does this same 
X mean that the boundaries to be fixed at Ver- 
sailles are immutable, or simply that they cannot 
be changed by threat of war? Does this X mean 
that if a state once member of the League col- 
lapses through misgovernment the mandatory 
principle cannot be applied to it? 

Apart from these general and technical diffi- 
culties there are certain specific criticisms to be 
made. 

The covenant is very difficult to amend. Now 
an organic law which is virtually unchangeable 
should not burden itself with those abstract nega- 



56 The Political Scene 

tive principles, which are the refuge of obstruc- 
tionists. Article X, guaranteeing territorial 
integrity and existing political independence, is 
of this type. It is an article of distrust, an effort 
to be wiser than the next generation, and to curb 
the action of the future by a magic set of words. 
Contrast it with Article XI, which makes it a 
" friendly right " to draw attention to circum- 
stances which threaten peace and understanding. 
X binds the League in a formula; XI releases the 
League for an active policy of conciliation. The 
one is restrictive, the other permissive, and the 
two clauses bark at each other. X is one of 
those grand generalities behind which every 
opponent of change can barricade himself. He 
can always declare that anything he does not like 
is " external aggression " against his political 
independence, and there is always sure to be some 
nation ready to vote against a unanimous recom- 
mendation. 

The clause will not protect a nation's independ- 
ence against the kind of economic penetration 
which to-day constitutes the chief mode of con- 
quest. But it will protect a government in bad 
practices and oppressions. It will hamper the 



Amendments 57 



honorable nations by ruling out interference; it 
will assist the dishonorable governments who 
have learned to manipulate affairs in a costume 
of legality. It may put minorities beyond the 
scope of the League's protection, and enforce the 
privilege of the oppressing state. Moreover, it 
puts a premium upon insincerity. In the actual 
conduct of human affairs there is an increasing 
limitation of political dependence resulting from 
the necessities of economic cooperation. Those 
necessities are stronger than any political axiom, 
and will prevail. But under Article X they will 
prevail in roundabout fashion and furtively. The 
framers of the covenant, and the majority of 
well-informed people do not believe that a state 
can do what it pleases within its own boundaries. 
In the future men will believe it still less, for they 
are discovering that "international relations" 
are after all nothing but the result of what goes 
on within the different nations. Surely at the 
end of this war it is perfectly clear that the 
" political independence " of empires like that of 
the Hohenzollerns, Hapsburgs, and Sultan is not 
something the world can afford to regard as 
beyond the jurisdiction of the League. 



58 The Political Scene 

The Article should be revised. The preamble 
contains all that is valuable in it without setting 
up a piece of political dogmatism derived from the 
eighteenth century. Provided that international 
law is given binding sanctions, it is not the busi- 
ness of this generation to put the substance of 
that law in a straitjacket. When we have agreed 
that law is binding we have given all the neces- 
sary guarantees. What the law is to be in specific 
cases must be determined on the facts as they are 
developed by events. There is every reason to 
believe, for example, that sooner or later the 
world will require a far greater regulation of 
international trade than any one has yet dared to 
suggest. The experiences of the war point that 
way. They indicate the impossibility of per- 
mitting unfair trade practices between sup- 
posedly friendly nations, or of profiteering by 
governments, or the use of monopolies as a 
means of conquest. The conferees at Paris have 
avoided these matters in the draft. Perhaps they 
had to. But statesmen in the future may not be 
able to avoid them, and it is the part of wisdom 
to eliminate any dogmatic rule now which might 
exclude such action. 



Amendments 59 



If the covenant is to serve through the perils 
that confront the next generation, flexibility and 
the possibilities of growth must be assured. To 
attempt, in the organic law, to go beyond " in- 
struments " to legislation is to turn our back upon 
a century of experience with written constitu- 
tions. No printed text can govern the energies of 
a generation, but it can stifle the more inventive 
but scrupulous minds. When we have accepted 
the League we intend to abide by its spirit and its 
letter; let us not, then, tie ourselves up in the 
presence of those who may use the letter of it 
to defeat the spirit. That we can do by eliminat- 
ing the negatives. 

We can do it also by enlarging the " instru- 
mentalities/' The President's own experience 
shows how necessary it is to secure the intimate 
cooperation of executive and legislature, majority 
and minority, if the action of the League is not 
to be balked. No meeting of executives alone is 
sufficient to bind the nations, and it is a stultifica- 
tion of democratic control to erect a structure on 
the theory that the legislature will accept the 
commitments of the executive after they are 
made. In parliamentary countries the ministry 



60 The Political Scene 

will fall if its representatives make commitments 
of which the legislature disapproves. Under 
congressional government the result is likely to 
be a deadlock. 

Inevitably, the mere act of securing agreement 
under the machinery of the League is impossible 
unless the delegates are capable of speaking with 
assurance for their countries. And having 
spoken, having reached a complicated agreement, 
it is infinitely confusing to throw the whole busi- 
ness back to the legislature for revision. A dis- 
agreement between House and Senate is nothing 
to what a disagreement between the legislatures 
of many nations would be. The only solution 
apparently is to have the legislative branch partic- 
ipate in the original discussion, so that it is not 
confronted each time with an accomplished fact. 
To be sure, the whole legislature of every state 
cannot be at the seat of the League, but there 
is no obvious reason why delegates from its 
Foreign Relations Committee should not be pres- 
ent to consult with the executive and with foreign 
legislators to share the responsibilities, and advise 
during the course of the negotiations. Both the 
administration parties and the opposition parties 



Amendments 61 



would thus be on the ground, and the resulting 
commitment would have a surer basis. 

Unless Congress is to abandon power over 
foreign affairs, except the power to obstruct, it 
will insist upon representation of the legislature 
in the structure of the League. Formally, this 
representation need be nothing more than advis- 
ory, but the advice should be in the course, and 
not at the end, of the negotiations. It is no 
question of trusting or distrusting Mr. Wilson. 
I trust him beyond any statesman in the world 
to-day. It is a matter of the future, when Mr. 
Wilson will be a private citizen, and when per- 
haps some other person will be in the White 
House who needs to be checked by Congress. 
Above all, it is a matter of downright democratic 
responsibility which the legislature cannot 
abandon, no matter how excellent a President 
may be. Finally, it is a necessity, as politics is 
managed to-day. No government on the conti- 
nent of Europe is rooted deeply in the affections 
of the masses. Those who are now at Paris may 
not all be there a few months hence. No man 
knows who will rise to power. But this covenant 
is supposed to be a League not of governments 



62 The Political Scene 

but of nations, and that implies that the com- 
plexion of political parties must be represented. 
The opposition of to-day may be the government 
to-morrow. Surely it is nothing but common 
sense to ask that the leaders of the opposition 
should remain in the closest personal touch with 
the affairs of the League. 

The value of this participation does not end 
here. Everyone knows that even with the best 
will in the world, each legislature is enormously 
preoccupied with purely local affairs, and that its 
contact with international politics is meager. Yet 
the texture of diplomacy is largely made out of 
the acts of legislatures. If the world is to have 
peace and understanding some means must be 
found of creating a community of feeling be- 
tween parliaments. They should have ways of 
debating with one another as well as within their 
own chambers. The opposition, no less than the 
administration, should have direct access to that 
subtle but decisive information which can be 
obtained only by being on the spot. Had Mr. 
Lodge been in Paris, studying the confidential 
reports, and talking to responsible European offi- 
cials, had he been made to feel that what he 



Amendments 63 



thought really matters, as it undoubtedly does, 
he would insensibly have tended to forget that his 
role was officially that of opposing what Demo- 
crats propose. And when he returned to Wash- 
ington Republican senators would have listened 
to him as they will never listen to Mr. Wilson. 
In other words, it is necessary to expose the 
opposition to the same influences, and the same 
information, if any settled national policy is to 
emerge. What is true of Mr. Lodge is equally 
true of the extreme left. The irreconcilable radi- 
cal is ever so much less irreconcilable when he can 
express himself and when he has to share respon- 
sibility. Now the irreconcilable radical is a very 
considerable person in the modern world, and 
once he becomes convinced that the League is a 
secret manipulation he will be equally convinced 
that it is a sinister manipulation. Deny him the 
chance to protest and to advise, he will certainly 
attack and condemn. 

It will be difficult enough in all conscience to 
secure harmony in a League when half the world 
is socialist and the other half anti-socialist. By 
calling in representatives of the elected parlia- 
ments this schism can be modified and an indis- 



64 The Political Scene 

pensable bridge built between the conservative 
governments and the more radical masses. M. 
Clemenceau, for example, loves France, but he 
will never have the confidence of Socialist 
Europe, and anything he does is suspect to it. 
But M. Thomas also loves France; yet he can 
converse with socialists. Mr. Henderson can 
work for understanding in groups when Mr. 
Lloyd George can produce only a rhetori- 
cal explosion. So if the League is not to find 
itself marooned on the dry sands of irrele- 
vance it should take steps to introduce into its 
own structure the conciliatory influence of the 
opposition parties. 

Conciliatory they are, and I do not see how 
any sane person could wish them to be anything 
else. Senator Lodge talks menacingly about 
building bridges across chasms to anarchy, but 
unless the bridges to moderate radicalism are 
maintained anarchy will follow. For there is 
just one sure protection against those things 
which Senator Lodge and most of the rest of us 
fear. That protection does not consist in play- 
ing the ostrich, nor does it consist in losing your 
head and trying to stamp on those who wish to 



Amendments 65 



make life too decent to be the breeding place of 
anarchy. It consists in remembering the very 
wise remark of the British Prime Minister that 
he feared reaction more than Bolshevism. For 
everything depends on where you think the 
chasm is. If you think it begins at a line drawn 
sharply along the frontiers of Senator Lodge's 
mind, then I fear most of us will find ourselves 
on the other side of the chasm. But if you put 
the frontier far enough to the left so as to in- 
clude that huge majority of men who want 
change, and are not yet blind with desperation, 
there is no reason to fear anarchy here. Bol- 
shevism is extraordinarily easy to combat in a 
well-fed country, and its existence is a sign of 
disgraceful incompetence in the governing cir- 
cles. Bolshevism arises only where rulers have 
made a botch of their duties, and one of the sure 
ways of making a botch of them is to close your 
mind to the loyal opposition. 



IX 

BOLSHEVISM 

THE League can be made the instrument by 
which the disrooted populations of the 
world may readjust themselves peacefully. 
It can be. It may not be. If there is not 
enough imagination and courage applied to the 
policies for which the instrument is used, it is 
altogether probable that the complete collapse of 
established authority will follow. It is entirely 
true that if authority is to be preserved and the 
transition controlled, the Western powers will 
have to listen to those men whose minds are un- 
poisoned by their own fears and their own hates. 
The peril is too real for self-indulgence in the 
lazy repetition of war cries, and those who are 
really bent on preserving the order of the world 
cannot allow themselves to be silenced by those 
moral terrorists who are pretending to save 
civilization by dividing it. 

The hope of world order to-day is confronted 

66 



Bolshevism 67 



by the diminishing faith of vast masses of people, 
who have seen governments bungle, falter and 
send men uselessly to death. They have seen 
governments blinded by privileged groups and 
favoritism, and cowed by the forces of reaction; 
they are angry and fiercely distrustful. They 
have borne the pain of the most extensive calam- 
ity in human history, and they have little more 
to lose. They sit restlessly in awful judgment 
upon the Lodges of the world. Their theories 
are a tiny part of their true feelings. What 
holds them from almost universal despair and 
dissolution is a lingering hope that perhaps there 
is still enough generosity and mercy left in 
Western statecraft to meet the issue. They are 
still turned, though skeptically, to the America 
which Wilson has described to them. For Amer- 
ica did the incredible thing among governments. 
It fought without selfish purpose. It waged a 
clean war, and thereby made itself the strongest 
pillar of faith in authority standing intact in the 
world to-day. It is a terrifying thing rather than 
a cause of vanity that this should be so. 

Americans did not plan to have thrust upon 
them such responsibilities as these. The army 



68 The Political Scene 

went humbly to the veterans of France. The 
American people intended to follow rather than 
to lead their Allies. But when the actual situa- 
tion of Europe was revealed, they found their 
own diffidence a source of confidence in others. 
The goodness or badness of all this is a trivial 
question compared to the fact that it represents 
the truth about the world to-day, and a with- 
drawal by America from the position she occu- 
pies will be the signal for a European revolution. 
The imminence of that revolution is the domi- 
nating thought of all men everywhere. Lenin 
and Liebknecht sit in the Council at Paris, and 
their voices are heard in every discussion. It is 
with them that the world is negotiating to-day 
for its own preservation. Those negotiations 
are watched intensely through the crevices of 
publicity which the Peace Conference permits. 
But cutting across this basic negotiation are a 
thousand strands of special claim and ambition 
to interrupt and entangle. Some one wants a 
piece of land, some one else wants to make 
money, another wants to work a little intrigue, 
and this stuff of the old diplomacy obscures 
vision, and distorts the proceedings. The direct 



Bolshevism 69 



business of the conference is to feed the world, 
set it to work, and reconcile its people. Whoever 
impedes that is fiddling for a disaster. What- 
ever prevents the existing governments in Eu- 
rope from reestablishing normal life encourages 
those who say that the existing governments are 
damned and that there is no salvation in them. 

The reason why Lenin may succeed is that the 
victors do not take seriously enough what he rep- 
resents. They are frightened to be sure, they 
are even panicky, but they are not serious enough 
about the menace to be willing to subordinate 
every other consideration to the creation of a 
Europe which will be sterile to Bolshevism. 
They want to fight Lenin with one hand and use 
the other for their own purposes. They are re- 
peating the error of those who wanted to win 
the war and at the same time continue to do 
business as usual. 

Out of this desire arise those ingenious dip- 
lomatic futilities by which the old intrigue is to 
be maintained as a method of crushing the Bol- 
shevist power. Having realized that the armies 
of France and Great Britain cannot be used to 
police Russia, and that the American people do 



70 The Political Scene 

not intend to bury half a million boys in a wild- 
erness for ten years or so, the idea of direct 
military intervention has been abandoned, and 
for it has been substituted the fashionable phrase 
" sanitary cordon." The theory is that a dam 
is to be erected in the east of Europe consisting 
of Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, a Greater Rumania, 
and Jugo-Slavia, and statesmen representing 
these nations have actually been found who are 
willing to have their countries used as a dam. 
These new and fragile republics are to be erected 
between Bolshevist Russia, Communist Hungary 
and Spartacide Germany. Then another dam is 
to be erected on the Rhine, and the whole thing 
guaranteed by an alliance with Great Britain 
and America disguised as a League of Nations. 
This is a very dangerous bit of fooling. No 
one who knows anything of the internal condi- 
tions of the new states of eastern Europe can 
for a moment imagine that they will survive 
squeezed in between gigantic revolutions in both 
Germany and Russia. Those new states are 
fragments of destroyed empires, and each con- 
tains within itself problems that have all the 
seeds of disorder. Each one moreover is at least 



Bolshevism 7 l 



partially in the hands of men whose ideas reflect 
the old imperial system, with the result that there 
has been through the winter a tangle of little 
wars on the frontiers of all of them. One Am- 
erican observer returning in January from what 
was Austria-Hungary had accounted for eleven 
separate military campaigns going on in the sani- 
tary cordon. 

The motive for using these little states as the 
buffer of the world is clear. It is to evade the 
disagreeable necessity of effecting a reconcilia- 
tion between the German people and the Western 
nations. If the cordon can be made to stand up 
it is possible to keep Germany prostrate and to 
escape the danger to Europe if her people become 
desperate; the new states are to be an iron fence 
dividing two areas of Bolshevism from each 
other. This is a more complicated version of 
what was tried at Brest-Litovsk, the scheme 
there was to use these same border states as a 
buffer, and then to paralyze Russia by splitting 
off the Ukraine. The new version is to use these 
states as a buffer facing two ways, and to paralyze 
Germany by splitting off a Rhenish republic. It 
would require as its first condition the mainte- 



72 The Political Scene 

nance for an indefinite period of a huge army on 
the Rhine. With Germany in profound dis- 
order, as it will be, if food is not given and 
factories set going and the burden of debt made 
bearable, the occupation of Germany would have 
to follow. For Bolshevism in both Russia and 
Germany would soon eat the heart out of Po- 
land, Rumania, and Hungary where social condi- 
tions are already desperate. Now any one who 
supposes that the populations of France and 
Great Britain will endure the human and econ- 
omic cost of such an occupation is suffering from 
a severe case of reading nothing but censored 
news. 

The plain fact is that the reconstruction of 
Europe requires an orderly government and a 
contented population in Germany. The very 
existence of the new states depends upon protect- 
ing their flanks against revolution. A moderate 
socialist republic in Germany, such as the Ebert 
government represents, is the only type of gov- 
ernment in central Europe to-day which can 
make that part of the world immune against the 
disorder which is traveling westward. If what 
Ebert represents is a failure, if it cannot pre- 



Bolshevism 73 



serve Germany from dismemberment and a long 
economic bondage, then the only alternatives 
open are to restore the Hohenzollerns or to give 
up in desperation, repudiate all authority and 
obligation and go Bolshevist. Of the three pos- 
sible Germanys — Junker, Ebert, or Spartacide, 
there can be no doubt that Ebert' s is the one 
with which the world can best live at peace. 
But the persistence of Ebert depends entirely 
upon his ability to extricate Germany from her 
immediate troubles. 

Now if this were the Last Judgment it would 
be quite plausible to think of the horrors of Bel- 
gium and France, to recall the exultation which 
accompanied the Lusitania's destruction, and to 
deny that it is desirable to extricate such a people 
from the damnation of its defeat. But the Con- 
gress of Versailles is not the Last Judgment; it 
is a meeting of statesmen to determine the fu- 
ture of mankind, and that freedom from respon- 
sibility for the future, as well as the omnipo- 
tence and omniscence of the Last Judgment are 
denied to them. They cannot damn the German 
people for all time, desirable as that might be, be- 
cause German mothers bear German children. 



74 The Political Scene 

They cannot consign them to the hell they de- 
serve, because the location of that hell will be 
the center of Europe. They are limited to nar- 
row choices among present day facts — to an 
economic and political reconciliation with the 
Weimar convention or the victory of the Sparta- 
cides. Moral reconciliation will come more 
slowly, and not altogether until a guiltless gen- 
eration has grown to maturity. With the in- 
dividual grown-up citizens of what was the Ger- 
man Empire the resumption of spiritual inter- 
course will always depend upon a preliminary 
discussion of the past. 

But this feeling which will in varying degree 
govern the conduct of Western peoples has no 
place in statesmanship. The business of that 
statesmanship is not to make a sanitary cordon, 
but a sanitary Europe. Having eliminated the 
dangers of a sudden Prussian revival by disarm- 
ing the German nation for war their first concern 
should be to preserve a continuous area of stable 
democracy to the frontiers of Bolshevist Russia. 
That is the true way to protect France, both 
against the hypothetical peril of renewed aggres- 
sion and the actual peril of revolution within the 



Bolshevism 75 



next few years. That is the true way of dealing 
with Lenin's ambitions which will corrode an 
army, but are baffled by contentment. 

With a settlement in Europe which weaves 
Germany and the new states into the texture of 
western commerce and political life, the League 
of Nations will have a basis in reality that it can 
never obtain by making a schism at the Rhine, 
and throwing little states out into the middle of 
the revolutionary torrent in order to stem it. 
For the creation of a solid area of liberal govern- 
ment under the aegis of the League is prelimi- 
nary to the final problem of dealing with Lenin. 
The nations, with whose whole conception of 
society Lenin is avowedly at war, can go for- 
ward to deal with him successfully only when 
they have left no formidable discontent in their 
own rear. So long as the nations of the league 
are perforated with maladministration and loss 
of faith they are like an army advancing while 
its lines of communication are cut. 

The perplexing thing about Bolshevism is 
that it is primitive. And being primitive it is 
formless, and has no vital center. You can kill 
a government by occupying its capital and a few 



76 The Political Scene 

of its chief strategic points. Bolshevism has no 
strategic points. It is a complete dissolution of 
centralized organization into local atoms of self- 
government. These atoms have to be stamped 
on one by one, because no one of them is pro- 
foundly dependent on the others. That is why 
the policing of Russia would require an enor- 
mous army distributed over its whole area. Now 
even if a sufficient army could be raised, which 
it cannot be, the discipline of that army would be 
most difficult to maintain. An army of occupa- 
tion is a bored and discontented army and the 
more successfully it maintains order the more 
time it has to growl against the politicians and 
wonder when it will be allowed to go home. 
Moreover, no government established by an 
army of occupation is likely to last after the 
army goes because it bears the stigma of being 
the creature of the invading alien. The odium 
of all the privations which occurred during the 
occupation is upon it, and it is the experience of 
this war at least that an administration set up 
by the conqueror has to be escorted out of the 
country when the conqueror leaves. 

It is possible to make war upon a nation or- 



Bolshevism 77 



ganized under a government. There is no way 
of winning a war against several hundred thou- 
sand more or less independent villages. Yet that 
is the fundamental condition in Bolshevik Rus- 
sia to-day. All the ordinary rules of warfare are 
inapplicable. And because of this, the ordin- 
ary short cut of force instead of negotiation is 
inapplicable. The process of redintegration can- 
not be pushed fast because all the ties of habit 
upon which government rests are torn. It is not 
possible to bully Russia into order, nor to curse 
her into it. She will have to be drawn into it 
by reestablishing the bonds of economic inter- 
dependence between her fragments and the or- 
ganized society of the west. 

To this end a suggestion might perhaps be 
offered. As a preliminary to the withdrawal of 
the Allied forces now operating in various parts 
of Russia, agreement should be reached both 
with the local Soviets and with the Central Soviet 
at Moscow that certain ports of the Arctic, the 
Baltic, the Black Sea and the Pacific should be 
constituted international cities under the admin- 
istration of bodies appointed by the League of 
Nations, and including for this purpose repre- 



78 The Political Scene 

sentative of the local and Central Soviets. The 
policing of these ports would be by naval forces 
including marines authorized by the League. In 
these ports economic commissions representing 
the League would be set up with authority to 
make trading agreements with any soviet, coop- 
erative society, trade union or corporation that 
could give the necessary guarantees. The fail- 
ure to uphold the guarantees would be followed 
by boycott of the particular offender. These 
commissions would sell the goods imported by 
and exported for an international trading cor- 
poration organized for the purpose by the na- 
tions having commercial resources for the enter- 
prise. They could also distribute relief where 
the need existed without means of payment. 

Now the raising of the standards of life re- 
sulting from this trading and from relief might 
gradually restore the contact of the Russian peo- 
ple with the outer world. And with contact 
would come that sense of the realities of govern- 
ment and business which is necessary to the re- 
vival of Russia. The relation would be delicate, 
and if mismanaged would certainly fail. If it 
were used to promote the counter-revolution, if 



Bolshevism 79 



these commissions were made the centers of anti- 
soviet intrigue, if in short the thing were done 
in bad faith, the experiment would certainly col- 
lapse. But if it were done humanely, tolerantly, 
generously, with a high sense that the Russian 
people too have a right to choose their own ways 
of life and obedience, it might well undermine 
the Bolshevist regime, and attach Soviet Rus- 
sia to the world community. By permitting the 
members of the League actual observation of 
Russian affairs it might make unnecessary the 
spectacle of the United States Senate trying to 
inform itself about Russia by listening to tittle- 
tattle. By opening a commercial regime, it 
might avert the awkwardness of attempting dip- 
lomatic relations with a state that denies all the 
premises of international relationship. Finally 
it might prevent whatever danger there may be 
in the single exploitation of Russia by a resur- 
rected Pan-Germany. 



THE TEST 

THE three problems presented by Germany, 
Russia, and the intervening border states, 
do not exhaust the perplexities which victory 
has brought to the victors. One has only to 
mention Turkey and China. But these prob- 
lems do indicate how pressing and practical is 
the need for an international organization by 
which the world can be administered into an 
era of stability. No one who has grasped those 
problems as they press upon mankind can per- 
sist in the idea that peace consists in signing a 
treaty, shaking hands with the Allies, and return- 
ing home to gaze in rapt admiration at the Mon- 
roe Doctrine. I know this feeling quite well. 
I have shared it, and have wondered whether 
anything could be done with that jangle of mem- 
ories which so often seems to be the mind of 
Europe. 

Perhaps nothing can be done. Perhaps the 



Thy&zst 8 1 

memories and the appetites are too strong to 
save the world from a period of despair. Per- 
haps the men who are meeting so secretly in 
Paris are too much divided to use the instru- 
ment of cooperation which they have framed. 
We shall know soon whether they have made a 
peace upon which a League can operate. But 
they shall not be able to say that they failed be- 
cause America failed them, and that the dishonor 
is hers. They shall not be able to claim that the 
peace of the world was shattered because the 
strongest and safest of all was too timid to help 
them. America's true policy in this day is to 
say to Europe: We shall stay with you and 
share the decisions of the future if you will make 
the peace we are asked to share, a peace that 
Europe will endure. But if you make it a peace 
that can be maintained only by the bayonet we 
shall leave you to the consequences and find our 
own security in this hemisphere. It will have to 
be a very bad peace indeed to justify any such 
action on our part, and nothing less than that 
would ever justify it. 



APPENDIX I 

THE WORLD CONFLICT IN ITS RELATION 
TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 

An address delivered before the American Academy of 
Political and Social Science at Philadelphia, April, 191 7. 
Reprinted as Senate Document No. 80, 65th Congress 1st 
Session. 

I. 

The way in which President Wilson directed 
America's entrance into the war has had a 
mighty effect on the public opinion of the world. 
Many of those who are disappointed or pleased 
say they are surprised. They would not be sur- 
prised had they made it their business this last 
year to understand the policy of their Govern- 
ment. 

In May, 19 16, the President made a speech 
which will be counted among the two or three 
decisive utterances of American foreign policy. 
The Sussex pledge had just been extracted from 
the German Government, and on the surface 

83 



84 The Political Scene 

American neutrality seemed assured. The 
speech was an announcement that American iso- 
lation was ended, and that we were prepared to 
join a League of Peace. This was the founda- 
tion of all that followed, and it was intended to 
make clear to the world that America would 
not abandon its traditional policy for imperial- 
istic adventure, that if America had to fight it 
would fight for the peace and order of the world. 
It was a great portent in human history, but it 
was overshadowed at the time by the opening of 
the presidential campaign. 

Through the summer the President insisted 
again and again that the time had come when 
America must assume its share of responsibility 
for a better organization of mankind. In the 
early autumn very startling news came from 
Germany. It was most confusing because it 
promised peace manceuvers, hinted at a separate 
arrangement with the Russian court party, and 
at the resumption of unlimited submarine war- 
fare. The months from November to February 
were to tell the story. Never was the situation 
more perplexing. The prestige of the Allies was 
at low ebb, there was treachery in Russia, and, 



In April, IQIJ 85 

as Mr. Lansing said, America was on the verge 
of war. We were not only on the verge of war, 
but on the verge of a bewildering war which 
would not command the whole-hearted support 
of the American people. 

With the election past, and a continuity of ad- 
ministration assured, it became President Wil- 
son's task to make some bold move which would 
clarify the muddle. While he was preparing 
this move, the German chancellor made his high- 
handed proposal for a blind conference. That it 
would be rejected was obvious. That the rejec- 
tion would be followed by the submarine war 
was certain. The danger was that America 
would be drawn into the war at the moment 
when Germany appeared to be offering the peace 
for which the bulk of the American people 
hoped. We know now that the peace Germany 
was prepared to make last December was the 
peace of a conqueror; but at the time Germany 
could pose as a nation which had been denied a 
chance to end the war. It was necessary, there- 
fore, to test the sincerity of Germany by asking 
publicly for a statement of terms. The Presi- 
dent's circular note to the powers was issued. 



86 The Political Scene 

This note stated more precisely than ever before 
that America was ready to help guarantee the 
peace, and at the same time it gave all the bellig- 
erents a chance to show that they were fighting 
for terms which could be justified to American 
opinion. The note was very much misunder- 
stood at first because the President had said that, 
since both sides claimed to be fighting for the 
same things, neither could well refuse to define 
the terms. The misunderstanding soon passed 
away when the replies came. Germany brushed 
the President aside, and showed that she wanted 
a peace by intrigue. The Allies produced a docu- 
ment which contained a number of formulae so 
cleverly worded that they might be stretched to 
cover the wildest demands of the extremists or 
contracted to a moderate and just settlement. 
Above all the Allies assented to the league of 
peace which Germany had dismissed as irrele- 
vant. 

The war was certain to go on with America 
drawn in. On January 22, after submarine war- 
fare had been decided upon but before it had 
been proclaimed, the President made his address 
to the Senate. It was an international program 



In April, IQI7 87 

for democracy. It was also a last appeal to Ger- 
man liberals to avert a catastrophe. They did 
not avert it, and on February 1 Germany at- 
tacked the whole neutral world. That America 
would not submit was assured. The question 
that remained to be decided was the extent of 
our participation in the war. Should it be 
merely defensive on the high seas, or should it 
be a separate war? The real source of confusion 
was the treacherous and despotic Russian Gov- 
ernment. By no twist of language could a part- 
nership with that Government be made consist- 
ent with the principles laid down by the Presi- 
dent in his address to the Senate. 

The Russian revolution ended that perplexity 
and we could enter the war with a clear con- 
science and a whole heart. When Russia became 
a republic and the American Republic became an 
enemy, the German Empire was isolated before 
mankind as the final refuge of autocracy. The 
principle of its life is destructive of the peace of 
the world. How destructive that principle is 
the ever-widening circle of the war has disclosed. 



88 The Political Scene 

II. 

Our task is to define that danger so that our 
immense sacrifices shall serve to end it. I can 
not do that for myself without turning to the 
origins of the war in order to trace the logical 
steps by which the pursuit of a German victory 
has enlisted the enmity of the world. 

We read statements by Germans that there 
was a conspiracy against their national develop- 
ment, that they found themselves encircled by 
enemies, that Russia, using Serbia as an instru- 
ment, was trying to destroy Austria, and that the 
Entente had already detached Italy. Supposing 
that all this were true, it would remain an extraor- 
dinary thing that the Entente had succeeded in 
encircling Germany. Had that empire been a 
good neighbor in Europe, by what miracle could 
the old hostility between England and France 
and Russia have been wiped out so quickly ? But 
there is positive evidence that no such conspiracy 
existed. 

Germany's place in the sun is Asia Minor. By 
the Anglo-German agreement of June, 19 14, re- 
cently published, a satisfactory arrangement had 



In April, igij 89 



been reached about the economic exploitation of 
the Turkish Empire. Prof. Rohrbach has ac- 
knowledged that Germany was given concessions 
" which exceeded all expectations/' and on De- 
cember second, 1914, when the war was five 
months old, von Bethmann-Hollweg declared in 
the Reichstag that "this understanding was to 
lessen every possible political friction." The 
place in the sun had been secured by negotiation. 

But the road to that place lay through Austria- 
Hungary and the Balkans. It was this highway 
which Germany determined to control absolutely 
and the chief obstacle on that highway was 
Serbia backed by Russia. Into the complexities 
of that Balkan intrigue I am not competent to 
enter. We need, however, do no more than fol- 
low Lord Grey in the belief that Austria had a 
genuine grievance against Serbia, a far greater 
one, certainly, than the United States has ever 
had against Mexico. But Britain had no stake 
in the Austro-Serbian quarrel itself. 

It had an interest in the method which the 
Central Powers took of settling the quarrel. 
When Germany declared that Europe could not 
be consulted, that Austria must be allowed to 



90 The Political Scene 

crush Serbia without reference to the concert 
of Europe, Germany proclaimed herself an en- 
emy of international order. She preferred a war 
which involved all of Europe to any admission 
of the fact that a cooperative Europe existed. 
It was an assertion of unlimited national sover- 
eignty which Europe could not tolerate. 

This brought Russia and France into the field. 
Instantly Germany acted on the same doctrine 
of unlimited national sovereignty by striking at 
France through Belgium. Had Belgium been 
merely a small neutral nation the crime would 
still have been one of the worst in the history 
of the modern world. The fact that Belgium 
was an internationalized State has made the in- 
vasion the master tragedy of the war. For Bel- 
gium represented what progress the world had 
made toward cooperation. If it could not sur- 
vive then no internationalism was possible. 
That is why through these years of horror upon 
horror the Belgian horror is the fiercest of all. 
The burning, the shooting, the starving, and the 
robbing of small and inoffensive nations is tragic 
enough. But the German crime in Belgium is 
greater than the sum of Belgium's misery. It 



In April, IQI7 9 1 



is a crime against the bases of faith on which the 
world must build or perish. 

The invasion of Belgium instantly brought the 
five British democracies into the war. I think 
this is the accurate way to state the fact. Had 
the war remained a Balkan war with France en- 
gaged merely because of her treaty with Russia, 
had the fighting been confined to the Franco- 
German frontier, the British Empire might have 
come into the war to save the balance of 
power and to fulfil the naval agreements with 
France, but the conflict would probably never 
have become a people's war in all the free nations 
of the Empire. Whatever justice there may have 
been in Austria's original quarrel with Serbia 
and Russia was overwhelmed by the exhibition 
of national lawlessness in Belgium. 

This led to the third great phase of the war, the 
phase which concerned America most immedi- 
ately. The Allies, directed by Great Britain, em- 
ployed sea power to the utmost. They barred 
every road to Germany, and undoubtedly vio- 
lated many commercial rights of neutrals. What 
America would do about this became of decisive 
importance. If it chose to uphold the rights it 



92 The Political Scene 

claimed, it would aid Germany and cripple the 
Allies. If it refused to do more than negotiate 
with the Allies, it had, whatever the technicali- 
ties of the case might be, thrown its great weight 
against Germany. It had earned the enmity of 
the German Government, an enmity which broke 
out into intrigue and conspiracy on American 
soil. Somewhere in the winter of 19 15 America 
was forced to choose between a policy which 
helped Germany and one which helped the Allies. 
We were confronted with a situation in which 
we had to choose between opening a road to 
Germany and making an enemy of Germany. 
With the proclamation of submarine warfare in 
1 91 5 we were told that either we must aid Ger- 
many by crippling sea power or be treated as a 
hostile nation. The German policy was very 
simple: British mastery of the seas must be 
broken. It could be broken by an American at- 
tack from the rear or by the German submarine. 
If America refused to attack from the rear, 
America was to be counted as an enemy. It was 
a case of he who is not for me is against me. 

To such an alternative there was but one an- 
swer for a free people to make. To become the 



In April, IQI7 93 

ally of the conqueror of Belgium against France 
and the British democracies was utterly out of 
the question. Our choice was made and the su- 
preme question of American policy became : How 
far will Germany carry the war against us and 
how hard shall we strike back? That we were 
aligned on the side of Germany's enemies no 
candid man, I think, can deny. The effect of 
this alignment was to make sea power absolute. 
For mastery of the seas is no longer the posses- 
sion of any one nation. The supremacy of the 
British Navy in this war rests on international 
consent, on the consent of her allies and of the 
neutrals. Without that consent the blockade of 
Germany could not exist, and the decision of 
America not to resist Allied sea power was the 
final blow which cut off Germany from the 
world. It happened gradually, without spectac- 
ular announcement, but history, I think, will 
call it one of the decisive events of the 
war. 

The effect was to deny Germany access to the 
resources of the neutral world, and to open these 
resources to the Allies. Poetic justice never de- 
vised a more perfect retribution. The nation 



94 The Political Scene 

which had struck down a neutral to gain a mili- 
tary advantage found the neutral world a part- 
ner of its enemies. 

That partnership between the neutral world 
and Germany's enemies rested on merchant ship- 
ping. This suggested a new theory of warfare 
to the German Government. It decided that 
since every ship afloat fed the resources of its 
enemies, it might be a good idea to sink every 
ship afloat. It decided that since all the high- 
ways of the world were the communications of 
the Allies, those communications should be cut. 
It decided that if enough ships were destroyed, 
it didn't matter what ships or whose ships, Eng- 
land and France would have to surrender and 
make a peace on the basis of Germany's victories 
in Europe. 

Therefore on the thirty-first of January, 191 7, 
Germany abolished neutrality in the world. The 
policy which began by denying that a quarrel 
in the Balkans could be referred to Europe, went 
on to destroy the internationalized State of Bel- 
gium, culminated in indiscriminate attack upon 
the merchant shipping of all nations. The doc- 
trine of exclusive nationalism had moved 



In April, 19 1 7 95 



through these three dramatic phases until those 
who held it were at war with mankind. 

III. 

The terrible logic of Germany's policy had a 
stupendous result. By striking at the bases of 
all international order, Germany convinced even 
the most isolated of neutrals that order must be 
preserved by common effort. By denying that a 
society of nations exists, a society of nations has 
been forced into existence. The very thing Ger- 
many challenged Germany has established. Be- 
fore 1914 only a handful of visionaries dared to 
hope for some kind of federation. The ortho- 
dox view was that each nation had a destiny of 
its own, spheres of influence of its own, and that 
it was somehow beneath the dignity of a great 
State to discuss its so-called vital interests with 
other governments. It was a world almost with- 
out common aspiration, with few effective com- 
mon ideals. Europe was split into shifting 
alliances, democracies and autocracies jumbled 
together. America lay apart with a budding im- 
perialism of its own. China was marked as the 
helpless victim of exploitation. That old politi- 



96 The Political Scene 

cal system was one in which the German view 
was by no means altogether disreputable. In- 
ternationalism was half-hearted and generally 
regarded somewhat cynically. 

What Germany did was to demonstrate ad 
nauseam the doctrine of competitive nationalism. 
Other nations had applied it here and there, cau- 
tiously and timidly. No other nation in our time 
had ever applied it with absolute logic, with 
absolute preparation, and with absolute disre- 
gard of the consequences. Other nations had 
dallied with it, compromised about it, muddled 
along with it. But Germany followed through, 
and Germany taught the world just where the 
doctrine leads. 

Out of the necessities of defense against it 
men have gradually formulated the ideals of a 
cooperative nationalism. From all parts of the 
world there has been a movement of ideals work- 
ing slowly toward one end, toward a higher 
degree of spiritual unanimity than has ever been 
known before. China and India have been 
stirred out of their dependence. The American 
Republic has abandoned its isolation. Russia 
has become something like a republic. The Brit- 



In April, IQIJ 97 

ish Empire is moving toward closer federation. 
The grand alliance called into existence by the 
German aggression is now something more than 
a military coalition. Common ideals are work- 
ing through it — ideals of local autonomy and 
joint action. Men are crying that they must be 
free and that they must be united. They have 
learned that they can not be free unless they co- 
operate, that they can not cooperate unless they 
are free. 

I do not wish to underestimate the forces of 
reaction in our country or in the other nations 
of the alliance. There are politicians and com- 
mercial groups who see in this whole thing 
nothing but opportunity to secure concessions, 
manipulate tariffs, and extend the bureaucracies. 
We shall know how to deal with them. Forces 
have been let loose which they can no longer 
control, and out of this immense horror ideas 
have arisen to possess men's souls. There are 
times when a prudent statesman must build on 
a contracted view of human nature. But there 
are times when new sources of energy are 
tapped, when the impossible becomes possible, 
when events outrun our calculations. This may 



98 The Political Scene 

be such a time. The alliance to which we belong 
has suddenly grown hot with the new democracy 
of Russia and the new internationalism of Amer- 
ica. It has had an access of spiritual force 
which opens a new prospect in the policies of the 
world. We can dare to hope for things which 
we never dared to hope for in the past. In fact 
if those forces are not to grow cold and frittered 
they must be turned to a great end and offered 
a great hope. 

IV. 

That great end and that great hope is nothing 
less than the federation of the world. I know 
it sounds a little old-fashioned to use that phrase 
because we have abused it so long in empty rhet- 
oric; but no other idea is big enough to describe 
the alliance. It is no longer an offensive-defen- 
sive military agreement among diplomats. That 
is how it started, to be sure; but it has grown 
and is growing into a union of peoples deter- 
mined to end forever that intriguing, adventur- 
ous nationalism which has torn the world for 
three centuries. Good democrats have always 
believed that the common interests of men were 



In April, IQ 1 7 99 

greater than their special interests, that ruling 
classes can be enemies, but that the nations must 
be partners. Well, this war is being fought by- 
nations. It is the nations who were called to 
arms, and it is the force of nations that is now 
stirring the world to its foundations. 

The war is dissolving into a stupendous rev- 
olution. A few months ago we still argued 
about the Bagdad corridor, strategic frontiers, 
colonies. Those were the stakes of the diplo- 
mat's war. The whole perspective is changed 
to-day by the revolution in Russia and the in- 
tervention of America. The scale of values is 
transformed, for the democracies are unloosed. 
Those democracies have nothing to gain and 
everything to lose by the old competitive nation- 
alism, the old apparatus of diplomacy, with its 
criminal rivalries in the backward places of the 
earth. The democracies, if they are to be safe, 
must cooperate. For the old rivalries mean fric- 
tion and armament and a distortion of all the 
hopes of free government. They mean that na- 
tions are organized to exploit each other and to 
exploit themselves. That is the life of what we 
call autocracy. It establishes its power at home 



IOO The Political Scene 

by pointing to enemies abroad. It fights its 
enemies abroad by dragooning the population at 
home. 

That is why practically the whole world is at 
war with the greatest of the autocracies. That 
is why the whole world is turning so passionately 
toward democracy as the only principle on which 
peace can be secured. Many have feared, I 
know, that the war against Prussian militarism 
would result the other way, that instead of lib- 
eralizing Prussia the outcome would be a Prus- 
sianization of the democracies. That would be 
the outcome if Prusso-Germany won. That 
would be the result of a German victory. And 
that is why we, who are the most peaceful of 
democracies, are at war. The success of the sub- 
marine would give Germany victory. It was and 
is her one great chance. To have stood aside 
when Germany made this terrible bid for victory 
would have been to betray the hope of free gov- 
ernment and international union. 



There are two ways now in which peace can 
be made. The first is by political revolution in 



In April, IQI7 101 



Germany and Austria-Hungary. It is not for 
us to define the nature of that revolution. We 
can not dictate liberty to the German people. It 
is for them to decide what political institutions 
they will adopt, but if peace is to come through 
revolution, we shall know that it has come when 
new voices are heard in Germany, new policies 
are proclaimed, when there is good evidence that 
there has, indeed, been a new orientation. If 
that is done, the war can be ended by negotia- 
tion. 

The other path to peace is by the definite de- 
feat of every item in the program of aggression. 
This will mean, at a minimum, a demonstration 
on the field that the German army is not invin- 
cible; a renunciation by Germany of all the ter- 
ritory she has conquered ; a special compensation 
to Belgium; and an acknowledgment of the fal- 
lacy of exclusive nationalism by an application 
for membership in the league of nations. 

Frontier questions, colonial questions, are now 
entirely secondary, and beyond this minimum 
program the United States has no direct interest 
in the territorial settlement. The objects for 
which we are at war will be attained if we can 



102 The Political Scene 

defeat absolutely the foreign policy of the pres- 
ent German Government. For a ruling caste 
which has been humiliated abroad has lost its 
glamour at home. So we are at war to defeat 
the German Government in the outer world, to 
destroy its prestige, to deny its conquests, and to 
throw it back at last into the arms of the Ger- 
man people marked and discredited as the author 
of their miseries. It is for them to make the 
final settlement with it. 

If it is our privilege to exert the power which 
turns the scale, it is our duty to see that the end 
justifies the means. We can win nothing from 
this war unless it culminates in a union of liberal 
peoples pledged to cooperate in the settlement of 
all outstanding questions, sworn to turn against 
the aggressor, determined to erect a larger and 
more modern system of international law upon 
a federation of the world. That is what we are 
fighting for, at this moment, on the ocean, in the 
shipyard, and in the factory; later perhaps in 
France and Belgium, ultimately at the council 
of peace. 

If we are strong enough and wise enough to 
win this victory, to reject all the poison of hatred 



In April, IQI7 103 

abroad and intolerance at home, we shall have 
made a nation to which free men will turn with 
love and gratitude. For ourselves we shall stand 
committed as never before to the realization of 
democracy in America. We who have gone to 
war to insure democracy in the world will have 
raised an aspiration here that will not end with 
the overthrow of the Prussian autocracy. We 
shall turn with fresh interests to our own tyran- 
nies — to our Colorado mines, our autocratic 
steel industries, our sweatshops, and our slums. 
We shall call that man un-American and no pa- 
triot who prates of liberty in Europe and resists 
it at home. A force is loose in America as well. 
Our own reactionaries will not assuage it with 
their Billy Sundays or control it through lawyers 
and politicians of the old guard. 



APPENDIX II 

TEXT OF THE PROPOSED CONSTITU- 
TION OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS * 

COVENANT 

Preamble 
In order to promote international cooperation 
and to secure international peace and security by 
the acceptance of obligations not to resort to zvar, 
by the prescription of open, just and honorable 
relations between nations, by the firm establish- 
ment of the understandings of international law 
as the actual rule of conduct among governments, 
and by the maintenance of justice and a scrupu- 
lous respect for all treaty obligations in the deal- 
ings of organized people with one another, the 
powers signatory to this covenant adopt this con- 
stitution of the League of Nations: 

Article I. 
The action of the high contracting parties 
under the terms of this covenant shall be effected 

1 Reprinted from pamphlet published by League to Enforce Peace, 
130 West 426. Street, New York. 

104 



The Proposed League of Nations 105 

through the instrumentality of meetings of a 
body of delegates representing the high contract- 
ing parties, of meetings at more frequent in- 
tervals of an Executive Council, and of a 
permanent international secretariat to be estab- 
lished at the seat of the League. 

Article II. 

Meetings of the body of delegates shall be 
held at stated intervals and from time to time, 
as occasion may require, for the purpose of deal- 
ing with matters within the sphere of action of 
the League. Meetings of the body of delegates 
shall be held at the seat of the League, or at such 
other places as may be found convenient, and 
shall consist of representatives of the high con- 
tracting parties. Each of the high contracting 
parties shall have one vote, but may have not 
more than three representatives. 

Article III. 

The Executive Council shall consist of repre- 
sentatives of the United States of America, the 
British Empire, France, Italy, and Japan, to- 



io6 Appendix 



gether with representatives of four other States, 
members of the League. The selection of these 
four States shall be made by the body of dele- 
gates on such principles and in such manner as 
they think fit. Pending the appointment of these 
representatives of the other States, representa- 
tives of shall be members of the Execu- 
tive Council. 

Meetings of the council shall be held from 
time to time as occasion may require, and at least 
once a year, at whatever place may be decided 
on, or, failing any such decision, at the seat of 
the League, and any matter within the sphere of 
action of the League or affecting the peace of the 
world may be dealt with at such meetings. 

Invitations shall be sent to any power to attend 
a meeting of the council, at which matters 
directly affecting its interests are to be dis- 
cussed, and no decision taken at any meeting 
will be binding on such a power unless so invited. 

Article IV. 

All matters of procedure at meetings of the 
body of delegates or the Executive Council, in- 
cluding the appointment of committees to inves- 



The Proposed League of Nations 107 

tigate particular matters, shall be regulated by 
the body of delegates or the Executive Council, 
and may be decided by a majority of the States 
represented at the meeting. 

The first meeting of the body of delegates and 
of the Executive Council shall be summoned by 
the President of the United States of America. 

Article V. 

The permanent secretariat of the League shall 

be established at , which shall constitute 

the seat of the League. The secretariat shall 
comprise such secretaries and staff as may be 
required, under the general direction and control 
of a Secretary General of the League, who shall 
be chosen by the Executive Council. The secre- 
tariat shall be appointed by the Secretary Gen- 
eral subject to confirmation by the Executive 
Council. 

The Secretary General shall act in that capac- 
ity at all meetings of the body of delegates or 
of the Executive Council. 

The expenses of the secretariat shall be borne 
by the States members of the League, in accord- 
ance with the apportionment of the expenses of 



io8 Appendix 



the International Bureau of the Universal Postal 
Union. 

Article VI. 

Representatives of the high contracting parties 
and officials of the League, when engaged in the 
business of the League, shall enjoy diplomatic 
privileges and immunities, and the buildings oc- 
cupied by the League or its officials, or by repre- 
sentatives attending its meetings, shall enjoy the 
benefits of extra-territoriality. 

Article VII. 

Admission to the League of States, not signa- 
tories to the covenant and not named in the pro- 
tocol hereto as States to be invited to adhere to 
the covenant, requires the assent of not less than 
two-thirds of the States represented in the body 
of delegates, and shall be limited to fully self- 
governing countries, including dominions and 
colonies. 

No State shall be admitted to the League un- 
less it is able to give effective guarantees of its 
sincere intention to observe its international ob- 
ligations and unless it shall conform to such 
principles as may be prescribed by the League 



The Proposed League of Nations 109 

in regard to its naval and military forces and 
armaments. 

Article VIII. 

The high contracting parties recognize the 
principle that the maintenance of peace will re- 
quire the reduction of national armaments to the 
lowest point consistent with national safety, and 
the enforcement by common action of interna- 
tional obligations, having special regard to the 
geographical situation and circumstances of each 
State, and the Executive Council shall formulate 
plans for effecting such reduction. The Exe- 
cutive Council shall also determine for the con- 
sideration and action of the several Governments 
what military equipment and armament is fair 
and reasonable in proportion to the scale of 
forces laid down in the program of disarma- 
ment; and these limits, when adopted, shall not 
be exceeded without the permission of the Exe- 
cutive Council. 

The high contracting parties agree that the 
manufacture by private enterprise of munitions 
and implements of war lends itself to grave ob- 
jections, and direct the Executive Council to ad- 



no Appendix 



vise how the evil effects attendant upon such 
manufacture can be prevented, due regard being 
had to the necessities of those countries which 
are not able to manufacture for themselves the 
munitions and implements of war necessary for 
their safety. 

The high contracting parties undertake in no 
way to conceal from each other the condition of 
such of their industries as are capable of being 
adapted to warlike purposes or the scale of their 
armaments, and agree that there shall be full 
and frank interchange of information as to their 
military and naval programs. 

Article IX. 

A permanent commission shall be constituted 
to advise the League on the execution of the 
provisions of Article VIII. and on military and 
naval questions generally. 

Article X. 

The high contracting parties shall undertake 
to respect and preserve as against external ag- 
gression the territorial integrity and existing 
political independence of all States members of 



The Proposed League of Nations in 

the League. In case of any such aggression or 
in case of any threat or danger of such aggres- 
sion the Executive Council shall advise upon the 
means by which the obligation shall be fulfilled. 

Article XL 

Any war or threat of war, whether immedi- 
ately affecting any of the high contracting par- 
ties or not, is hereby declared a matter of concern 
to the League, and the high contracting parties 
reserve the right to take any action that may be 
deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace 
of nations. 

It is hereby also declared and agreed to be 
the friendly right of each of the high contracting 
parties to draw the attention of the body of dele- 
gates or of the Executive Council to any cir- 
cumstance affecting international intercourse 
which threatens to disturb international peace or 
the good understanding between nations upon 
which peace depends. 

Article XII. 

The high contracting parties agree that should 
disputes arise between them which cannot be ad- 



112 Appendix 



justed by the ordinary processes of diplomacy 
they will in no case resort to war without pre- 
viously submitting the questions and matters in- 
volved either to arbitration or to inquiry by the 
Executive Council and until three months after 
the award by the arbitrators or a recommenda- 
tion by the Executive Council, and that they will 
not even then resort to war as against a member 
of the League which complies with the award of 
the arbitrators or the recommendation of the 
Executive Council. 

In any case under this article the award of the 
arbitrators shall be made within a reasonable 
time, and the recommendation of the Executive 
Council shall be made within six months after 
the submission of the dispute. 

Article XIII. 

The high contracting parties agree that when- 
ever any dispute or difficulty shall arise between 
them, which they recognize to be suitable for 
submission to arbitration and which cannot be 
satisfactorily settled by diplomacy, they will sub- 
mit the whole matter to arbitration. For this 
purpose the court of arbitration to which the 



The Proposed League of Nations 113 

case is referred shall be the court agreed on by 
the parties or stipulated in any convention ex- 
isting between them. The high contracting 
parties agree that they will carry out in full good 
faith any award that may be rendered. In the 
event of any failure to carry out the award the 
Executive Council shall propose what steps can 
best be taken to give effect thereto. 

Article XIV. 

The Executive Council shall formulate plans 
for the establishment of a permanent court of 
international justice, and this court shall, when 
established, be competent to hear and determine 
any matter which the parties recognize as suit- 
able for submission to it for arbitration under 
the foregoing article. 

Article XV. 

If there should arise between States, members 
of the League, any dispute likely to lead to a rup- 
ture, which is not submitted to arbitration as 
above, the high contracting parties agree that 
they will refer the matter to the Executive 



114 Appendix 



Council; either party to the dispute may give 
notice of the existence of the dispute to the Sec- 
retary General, who will make all necessary 
arrangements for a full investigation and consid- 
eration thereof. For this purpose the parties 
agree to communicate to the Secretary General, 
as promptly as possible, statements of their case, 
with all the relevant facts and papers, and the 
Executive Council may forthwith direct the pub- 
lication thereof. 

Where the efforts of the council lead to the 
settlement of the dispute, a statement shall be 
published, indicating the nature of the dispute 
and the terms of settlement, together with such 
explanations as may be appropriate. If the dis- 
pute has not been settled, a report by the council 
shall be published, setting forth with all neces- 
sary facts and explanations the recommendation 
which the council think just and proper for the 
settlement of the dispute. If the report is 
unanimously agreed to by the members of the 
council, other than the parties to the dispute, the 
high contracting parties agree that they will not 
go to war with any party which complies with 
the recommendations, and that, if any party shall 



The Proposed League of Nations 115 

refuse so to comply, the council shall propose 
measures necessary to give effect to the recom- 
mendations. If no such unanimous report can be 
made it shail be the duty of the majority and the 
privilege of the minority to issue statements, in- 
dicating what they believe to be the facts, and 
containing the recommendations which they con- 
sider to be just and proper. 

The Executive Council may in any case under 
this article refer the dispute to the body of dele- 
gates. The dispute shall be so referred at the 
request of either party to the dispute, provided 
that such request must be made within fourteen 
days after the submission of the dispute. In 
any case referred to the body of delegates, all 
the provisions of this article, and of Article 
XII., relating to the action and powers of the 
Executive Council, shall apply to the action and 
powers of the body of delegates. 

Article XVI. 

Should any of the high contracting parties 
break or disregard its covenants under Article 
XII. it shall thereby ipso facto be deemed to have 
committed an act of war against all the other 



II 



6 Appendix 



members of the League, which hereby under- 
takes immediately to subject it to the severance 
of all trade or financial relations, the prohibition 
of all intercourse between their nationals and 
the nationals of the covenant-breaking State and 
the prevention of all financial, commercial, or 
personal intercourse between the nationals of the 
covenant-breaking State and the nationals of any 
other State, whether a member of the League or 
not. 

It shall be the duty of the Executive Council 
in such case to recommend what effective mili- 
tary or naval force the members of the League 
shall severally contribute to the armed forces to 
be used to protect the covenants of the League. 

The high contracting parties agree, further, 
that they will mutually support one another in 
the financial and economic measures which may 
be taken under this article in order to minimize 
the loss and inconvenience resulting from the 
above measures, and that they will mutually sup- 
port one another in resisting any special measures 
aimed at one of their number by the covenant- 
breaking State and that they will afford pas- 
sage through their territory to the forces of any 



The Proposed League of Nations 117 

of the high contracting parties who are coopera- 
ting to protect the covenants of the League. 

Article XVII. 

In the event of disputes between one State 
member of the League and another State which 
is not a member of the League, or between States 
not members of the League, the high contracting 
parties agree that the State or States, not mem- 
bers of the League, shall be invited to accept the 
obligations of membership in the League for the 
purposes of such dispute, upon such conditions as 
the Executive Council may deem just, and upon 
acceptance of any such invitation, the above pro- 
visions shall be applied with such modifications 
as may be deemed necessary by the League. 

Upon such invitation being given, the Execu- 
tive Council shall immediately institute an in- 
quiry into the circumstances and merits of the 
dispute and recommend such action as may seem 
best and most effectual in the circumstances. 

In the event of a power so invited refusing to 
accept the obligations of membership in the 
League for the purposes of such dispute, and 
taking any action against a State member of the 



n8 Appendix 



League, which in the case of a State member of 
the League would constitute a breach of Arti- 
cle XII., the provisions of Article XVI. shall be 
applicable as against the State taking such action. 
If both parties to the dispute, when so invited, 
refuse to accept the obligations of membership 
in the League for the purposes of such dispute, 
the Executive Council may take such action and 
make such recommendations as will prevent hos- 
tilities and will result in the settlement of the 
dispute. 

Article XVIII. 

The high contracting parties agree that the 
League shall be intrusted with the general super- 
vision of the trade in arms and ammunition 
with the countries in which the control of this 
traffic is necessary in the common interest. 

Article XIX. 

To those colonies and territories which, as a 
consequence of the late war, have ceased to be 
under the sovereignty of the States which for- 
merly governed them and which are inhabited by 
peoples not yet able to stand by themselves un- 



The Proposed League of Nations 119 



der the strenuous conditions of the modern 
world, there should be applied the principle that 
the well-being and development of such peoples 
'form a sacred trust of civilization and that se- 
curities for the performance of this trust should 
be embodied in the constitution of the League. 

The best method of giving practical effect to 
this principle is that the tutelage of such peoples 
should be intrusted to advanced nations, who by 
reason of their resources, their experience, or 
their geographical position, can best undertake 
this responsibility, and that this tutelage should 
be exercised by them as mandatories on behalf of 
the League. 

t The character of the mandate must differ ac- 
cording to the stage of the development of the 
people, the geographical situation of the terri- 
tory, its economic conditions and other similar 
circumstances. 

Certain communities, formerly belonging to 
the Turkish Empire, have reached a stage of 
development where their existence as independ- 
ent nations can be provisionally recognized, sub- 
ject to the rendering of administrative advice 
and assistance by a mandatory power until such 



120 Appendix 



time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes 
of these communities must be a principal con- 
sideration in the selection of the mandatory 
power. 

Other peoples, especially those of Central 
Africa, are at such a stage that the mandatory 
must be responsible for the administration of the 
territory, subject to conditions which will guar- 
antee freedom of conscience or religion, subject 
only to the maintenance of public order and 
morals, the prohibition of abuses such as the 
slave trade, the arms traffic, and the liquor traf- 
fic, and the prevention of the establishment of 
fortifications or military and naval bases and of 
military training of the natives for other than 
police purposes and the defense of territory, and 
will also secure equal opportunities for the trade 
and commerce of other members of the League. 

There are territories, such as Southwest Africa 
and certain of the South Pacific Islands, which, 
owing to the sparseness of the population, or 
their small size, or their remoteness from the 
centers of civilization, or their geographical con- 
tiguity to the mandatory State and other cir- 
cumstances, can be best administered under the 



The Proposed League of Nations 121 



laws of the mandatory States as integral por- 
tions thereof, subject to the safeguards above 
mentioned in the interests of the indigenous 
population. 

In every case of mandate, the mandatory State 
shall render to the League an annual report in 
reference to the territory committed to its charge. 

The degree of authority, control, or adminis- 
tration, to be exercised by the mandatory State, 
shall, if not previously agreed upon by the high 
contracting parties in each case, be explicitly de- 
fined by the Executive Council in a special act 
or charter. 

The high contracting parties further agree to 
establish at the seat of the League a mandatory 
commission to receive and examine the annual 
reports of the mandatory powers, and to assist 
the League in insuring the observance of the 
terms of all mandates. 

Article XX. 

The high contracting parties will endeavor to 
secure and maintain fair and humane conditions 
of labor for men, women, and children, both in 
their own countries and in all countries to which 



122 Appendix 



their commercial and industrial relations extend; 
and to that end agree to establish as part of the 
organization of the League a permanent bureau 
of labor. 

Article XXI. 

The high contracting parties agree that pro- 
vision shall be made through the instrumentality 
of the League to secure and maintain freedom 
of transit and equitable treatment for the com- 
merce of all States members of the League, hav- 
ing in mind, among other things, special arrange- 
ments with regard to the necessities cf the 
regions devastated during the war of 1914-1918. 

Article XXII. 

The high contracting parties agree to place 
under the control of the League all international 
bureaus already established by general treaties, 
if the parties to such treaties consent. Further- 
more, they agree that all such international bu- 
reaus to be constituted in future shall be placed 
under control of the League. 



The Proposed League of Nations 123 

Article XXIII. 

The high contracting parties agree that every 
treaty or international engagement entered into 
hereafter by any State member of the League 
shall be forthwith registered with the Secretary 
General and as soon as possible published by him, 
and that no such treaty or international engage- 
ment shall be binding until so registered. 

- Article XXIV. 

It shall be the right of the body of delegates 
from time to time to advise the reconsideration 
by States members of the League of treaties 
which have become inapplicable and of interna- 
tional conditions of which the continuance may 
endanger the peace of the world. 

Article XXV. 

The high contracting parties severally agree 
that the present covenant is accepted as abrogat- 
ing all obligations inter se which are inconsist- 
ent with the terms thereof, and solemnly engage 
that they will not hereafter enter into any en- 
gagement inconsistent with the terms thereof. 



124 Appendix 



In case any of the powers signatory hereto or 
subsequently admitted to the League shall, be- 
fore becoming a party to this covenant, have 
undertaken any obligations which are inconsist- 
ent with the terms of this covenant, it shall be 
the duty of such power to take immediate steps 
to procure its release from such obligations. 

Article XXVI. 

Amendments to this covenant will take effect 
when ratified by the States whose representa- 
tives compose the Executive Council and by 
three-fourths of the States whose representa- 
tives compose the body of delegates. 



THE END. 



BY WALTER LIPPMANN 

DRIFT AND MASTERY 

Cloth, $1.50 Net 

Theodore Roosevelt in The Outlook: 

"No man who wishes seriously to study our present 
social, industrial and political life can afford not to read 
it through and through and to ponder and digest it." 

William Marion Reedy in The St. Louis Mirror: 

"When 'A Preface to Politics* was published, I ven- 
tured the opinion that it was the best book on politics since 
Walter Bagehot's 'Physics and Politics.* Now he has fol- 
lowed it with 'Drift and Mastery/ an even more brilliant 
performance." 

A PREFACE TO POLITICS 

Cloth, $1.50 Net 
The Boston Transcript : 

" 'A Preface to Politics is its own complete and suffi- 
cient justification. In many respects it is the ablest brief 
book of its kind published during the last ten years. It 
has the supreme virtue of clearness aided by a style that 
is incisive and compelling." 

THE STAKES OF DIPLOMACY 
Cloth, $1.40 Net 

J. B. Kerfoot in Life: 

"It is a real joy to find it of the same order as 'A 
Preface to Politics.' It deals with human nature involved 
in international human relations impersonally, yet brings 
significances personally home to us. A book that widens 
horizons and quickens consciousness." 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

Publishers New York 



BOOKS ON SOCIAL SCIENCE 

IN THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 

clear."—- New York 



THE NEGRO 

By W. E. Burghart DuBois, 
author of Souls of Black Folks, 
etc. A history of the black man 
in Africa, America or wherever 
else his presence has been or is 
important. 

CO - PARTNERSHIP AND 
PROFIT SHARING 
By Aneurin Williams. Ex- 
plains the various types of co- 
partnership or profit-sharing, or 
both, and gives details of the 
arrangements now in force in 
many of the great industries. 

POLITICAL THOUGHT: 
From Herbert Spencer 
to the Present Day 
By Ernest Barker, M.A., Ox- 
ford. 

UNEMPLOYMENT 
By A. C. Pigou, M.A., Professor 
of 



Political Economy at Cam- 
bridge. The meaning, measure- 
ment, distribution, and effects of 
unemployment, its relation to 
wages, trade fluctuations, and 
disputes, and some proposals of 
remedy or relief. 

COMMON-SENSE IN LAW 
By Prof. Paul Vinogradoff, 
D.C.L., LL.D. Social and Legal 
Rules — Legal Rights and Duties 
— Facts and Acts in Law — Leg- 
islation — Custom—Judicial Pre- 
cedents^ — Equity — The Law of 
Nature. 

ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL 
ECONOMY 
By S. J. Chapman, Professor of 
Political Economy and Dean of 
Faculty of Commerce and Ad- 
ministration, University of Man- 
chester. A clear statement of 
the theory of the subject for 
non-expert readers. 

THE SCIENCE OF WEALTH 
By J. A. Hobson, author of 
Problems of Poverty. A study 
of the structure and working of 
the modern business world. 

PARLIAMENT. Its History, 

Constitution, and 

Practice 

By Sir Courtenay P. Ilbert, 

Clerk of the House of Commons. 

"Can be praised without reserve. 

Cloth bound, good paper, clear type, 256 pages 

per volume, bibliographies, indices, also maps 

or illustrations where needed. Each complete 

and sold separately. 



Admirably 
Sun. 

THE SOCIALIST MOVE- 
MENT 

By J. Ramsay Macdonald, Chair- 
man of the British Labor Party. 
"The latest authoritative exposi- 
tion of Socialism." — San Fran- 
cisco Argonaut. 

LIBERALISM 
By Prof. L. T. Hobhouse, au- 
thor of Democracy and Reaction. 
A masterly philosophical and his- 
torical review of the subject. 

THE STOCK EXCHANGE 
By F. W. Hirst, Editor of the 
London Economist. Reveals to 
the non-financial mind the facts 
about investment, speculation, 
and the other terms which the 
title suggests. 

THE EVOLUTION OF IN- 
DUSTRY 
By D. H. MacGregor, Professor 
of Political Economy, University 
of Leeds. An outline of the re- 
cent changes that have given us 
the present conditions of # the 
working classes and the princi- 
ples involved. 

ELEMENTS OF ENGLISH 
LAW 
By W. M. Geldart, Vinerian 
Professor of English Law, Ox- 
ford. A_ simple statement of the 
basic principles of the English 
legal system on which that of 
the United States is based. 

THE SCHOOL: An Introduc- 
tion to the Study of 
Education 
By J. J. Findlay, Professor of 
Education, Manchester. Pre- 
sents the history, the psycholog- 
ical basis, and the theory of the 
school with a rare power of sum- 
mary and suggestion. 

IRISH NATIONALITY 
By Mrs. J. R. Green. A bril- 
liant account of the genius and 
mission of the Irish people. "An 
entrancing work, and I would 
advise every one with a drop of 
Irish blood in his veins # or a 
vein of Irish sympathy in his 
heart to read it." — New York 
Times* Review. 



75 



c. 



net, pet 

Volume 



HENRY HOLT 

Publishers 



AND COMPANY 

New York 



BOOKS FOR THESE TIMES 
THE PEOPLES PART IN PEACE 

By ORDWAY TEAD 

The economic basis of the League of Nations, and the 
question of how labor is to be represented. ($1.10 net.) 

PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM : 

SOCIALISM, ANARCHISM AND SYNDICALISM 

BvBERTRAND RUSSELL, author of " Why Men Fight" 

The London Times: " A remarkable book by a remark- 
able man." ($1.50 net.) 

THE SIX HOUR DAY: 

AND OTHER INDUSTRIAL QUESTIONS 

By LORD LEVERHULME 

London Christian World: "Here is the one clear voice 
from the side of enlightened capitalism heard above the 
babel of reconstructive chatter." ($3.25 net.) 

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS: 

THE WAY TO THE WORLD'S PEACE 

By M. ERZBERGER, Member of the Reichstag. Translated by 
Bernard Miall. 

A German view of the League of Nations as presented by 
one of Germany's radical leaders. ($2.25 net.) 

THE PEACE-PRESIDENT: 

A BRIEF APPRECIATION OF WOODROW WILSON 

By WILLIAM ARCHER 

The New York Sun: "Will reap the reward of time- 
liness, but deserves . . . reward of attention for its own 
merit." ($1.00 net.) 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 



BY CHARLES DOWNER HAZEN 

Professor of History, Columbia University 

EUROPE SINCE 1815 

Octavo, with 14 colored maps. Library edition. #4. 00 
net. 

The author starts at the Congress of Vienna, and 
comes down to and explains the situation out of which 
the present war has developed. The style is fresh and 
attractive, the matter authoritative, the scope widely 
inclusive. 

"Has easily the field in English. For the last twenty-five 
years it is almost without a competitor. Should be on every 
book-shelf for reading or reference." — Harvard Graduates' 
Magazine. 

ALSACE-LORRAINE UNDER GERMAN RULE 

12mo. 3rd printing. #1.30 net. 

Belgium has suffered under our own eyes, but the 
earlier fate of Alsace-Lorraine lies in a period of 
European history which is hazy to most Americans. 
This book provides a brief and reliable account of the 
matter. It gives the facts upon which opinion may 
safely rest. 

" By far the best short, yet actually sufficient, presentment 
of a question that is at the very heart of the present struggle." 
—Boston Transcript. 

"The first volume of note in this field of history. The 
author's 'magic of style' makes his books the most widely 
circulated of any American historian's writings, and their 
great popularity is based as much on their accuracy and fair- 
ness as on their readability." — Publishers' Weekly. 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: 11,11 2001 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-2111 



